Still Waters Run Deep
by Winter Weatherman
Summary: Hinata stumbles across a heavily injured Sasuke in the forest and smuggles him into her house. With her father away, anything could happen. An attempt to write SasuHina somewhat realistically without glossing over Sasuke's issues.
1. Order

There was light spilling into the windows of the dojo.

White light, too lurid to be sunlight. The shadows it cast were too sharp.

Then Orochimaru struck him on the back of the head, and that light flared behind his eyes. Bright. As he fell, he recovered his wits enough to realize that it was nerves flaring in the back of his eyes. Orochimaru was striking the place on his neck that fed his optic nerve. And then the ground crashed in on him.

Orochimaru didn't snap at him to get up. Sasuke knew that Orochimaru would simply leave, should he fail to find his footing again. He would simply turn and walk away, as if Sasuke wasn't worth the effort of a reprimand. Orochimaru was like his father, in that way. And Sasuke knew that was intentional. Psychological manipulation. There was no particular jutsu to it, just observation and malice.

But Sasuke had no energy to waste on countering it. So he simply took what Orochimaru handed out. All of it. He proved he could take it, all of it, and more. He shamed Orochimaru's tactics with his strength to endure.

In theory, anyway.

"Sasuke," Orochimaru whispered in his ear, savoring the word.

And then...

He was in a room. The air was fresh, and it smelled of sandalwood. Daylight pressed on his eyelids. He groaned softly. Genjutsu? It would have to be.

He centered himself by slowing and shaping the pattern of his breathing. He retraced his steps in his mind. He had been training. Orochimaru had beaten him into unconsciousness.

No... Orochimaru had dazed him. He'd been lying at his feet. He'd felt Orochimaru's strong, thin hand tear at his scalp, pulling him up by a handful of hair. Then the whisper of coils, snakes that were not there, that only seduced his senses into believing. He foggily remembered a sense of invasion. Maybe Orochimaru had cast the genjutsu at that moment. Then, exactly. He exhaled, long and slow.

Orochimaru testing his resolve with the sensory impression of Konoha. Maybe he drew from his own memories. He had been a Leaf ninja once, too.

And those days were gone.

He had to break the illusion. He didn't like it. He hated this in particular, feeling this way, being reminded of this. He hated it. More then anything...

But he was so tired. And his limbs were heavy. He couldn't open his eyes. He couldn't stay awake.

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Hinata bowed to her father.

"Good morning," she said, brightly.

He was distracted with his baggage. "Where is Neji? He was to come with me."

Neji was on a mission. "He was assigned by the Hokage last night," Hinata replied. She had intercepted the message that came at midnight, and woken Neji. She wanted to let her father sleep, his health was unreliable lately. Of course, it would be rude to say that directly.

"I wanted to make sure you slept well for your journey," Hinata said sweetly, after explaining Neji's situation. She smiled, and let that speak her affection for her. Her father was a proud, aloof man. He was not easy to be close to, in any way. But she was learning. They were coming together as a family. Her father smiled too, slightly.

"Take care of the house, Hinata-chan." His tone was almost warm. "It will be yours someday. I leave it in your hands."

She followed him to the gate. In her folded hands, she carried the lunch she'd made for him. The affection had to be indirect, but she was allowed to express it. After so long, it made her smile just to share this moment in comfortable silence. She believed that her house would go on, that she would come to terms with him, and with Neji. She was beginning to believe what he said, that she could be the heir after all.

There was no encouragement from him today. Nor did he smile at her again. There would be no hugs at the gate. She simply handed him his lunch, wished him a safe journey.. and then both of them walked away, in separate directions. Safely inside the shadow of the gate, she paused, caught her breath. Then she went to wake Hanabi.

Hanabi did not want to get up.

"Nooooo..." she moaned, holding the quilt over her head.

"Now.. you have a mission today, maybe." Hinata told her gently.

"Liar," whined Hanabi, "I do not! I just have stupid training, Choji-sensei said we have to do pushhands all day..." She curled herself up in a way that sealed the edges of the quilt all around herself. Hinata tucked away her sigh, braced her foot on the edge of the futon, and pulled.

Hanabi tumbled out on the floor with a squeal. "Oneeeeeeesaaaaaaaaaaan!" she shrieked. "Aw! I don't waaaaaannnaa! No!" And further hysterics as Hinata calmly remade her bed, picked her clothes out of the bureau, handed her sister each item one by one, and finally tied the forehead protector around her head.

"Have a good day," she said, gently as before.

"Awwww!" growled Hanabi. But she stomped down the hallway, dragging her kunai pouch with her. "When I'm grown up, I'm living alone!"

Hinata trusted the cooks and servants to see her sister to the gate, where her teammates were already waiting. She felt some residual responsibility for that. Sometimes she would bring them a tray of sweets and tea. Not today, however.

She had the day off from teaching at the academy. She was biding her time before applying to become a jounin, becoming an instructor had made sense. And truth be told, she enjoyed it. She remembered the first time she had stood in front of the class, speaking to a roomful of squirrelly children, turning strawberry red, sweating with anxiety. All of those little eyes on her... But in time, she adapted. She had chosen it for that reason, to face her shyness head on, and defeat it.

She was a few months shy of her eighteenth birthday. Neji was twenty, and would have been eligible to attend the family council her father was attending. Hinata would be able to next year, should she choose to. She was dreading it. It was one thing to speak to young children. It was another to address a room full of adults, all of them watching her carefully, judging her as the heir. But she knew she would have to go. She would have to face her weaknesses, and slap them down, head on.

Though, she still stumbled, and quivered, when she spoke to Naruto-kun.

He had married Sakura-san earlier that year. She kept her feelings to herself. She didn't want to spoil their happiness, or the friendship that she was slowly easing into, with both of them. She wished them well. And inwardly, somewhere along the way, she knew that she had decided that she could not fight fate. Either Naruto would have come to her, or not. In the end, her path turned out to be different then his. Shino had said that she would need the courage to not only change herself, train herself, but to accept the new places these changes would lead to.

But she did miss him. Sometimes. Teaching helped. Working in her own quiet way to pull her family together.. that helped too. She told herself she had time. She was only eighteen. She would find her way. The comforting rhythm of the day, the rigorous structure of the lessons, all of these things helped to occupy her mind.

But today, Lee was taking over her class. He was popular with the young students, who competed to work as hard as he did. They pushed themselves for a smile, a word of praise, a pat on the head from him. And he distributed these often. She'd watched him stroll through the school training yards, encouraging each young student in turn. It was a style she envied. But she couldn't match his energy, she was softer, somehow. More empathetic. Her students, ironically, shushed and reprimanded one another. "Don't do that, sensei will be sad!" And "try harder, sensei will feel bad about it if she sees you do that!" At moments when they thought she wasn't looking, or she couldn't hear.

It bothered her at first. But she came to appreciate it. How strange.. It was her softness, her emotional weakness that ended up inspiring her students to work harder, do better. If only because they didn't want to upset her, or disappoint her. They cheered when she smiled. When she did so with true feeling. They could tell the difference, it was a bit eerie.

The faculty, for their part, made her take these little holidays. They worried that she worked too hard. They saw her training after class, and before it, and well into the evening. They didn't know that she had done this every day, every night, every morning, since she was twelve years old.

And they also didn't know that she used her days off to train even harder.

The air smelled of early spring. Her mind was clear with the sheer joy of heavy exertion. She ran swiftly through the woods, avoiding patches of thawing ice, exposed roots, rocks slippery with dew, even the ants and small creatures that crawled over the forest floor. She didn't use her byakugan, she didn't have to. Her body knew, and remembered. Her feet sensed the ground and reacted, it seemed, independent of her conscious mind.

Ten miles, just under an hour. She paused, leaning over to brace her hands on her knees and catch her breath.

She wouldn't have found him, if she hadn't stopped. She never used her byakugan in plain body skills training. She would have run right past him, never seeing the smudge of body heat, the hint of his sleeve that spilled from the underbrush.

As it was, she didn't recognize him at first. He was covered with bruises, caked with the wet topsoil. His side was wet with blood. She felt the heat of his fever with her hand only, when she dragged him from the muddy tangle of bushes.

He was alive, his pulse fluttered under her fingers. He was breathing.

But she had carried him halfway home before she finally placed his battered face in her memory. It was Naruto-kun's vanished comrade, the missing-nin Uchiha Sasuke.


	2. Logistics

He slept without dreams.

It was a mercy. His dreams had always been flat and dark. Even as a small child. He'd listened solemnly as his mother sang him fanciful lullabies. He'd closed his eyes and tried to picture the brightly colored samurai and oni, the mad monks and beautiful princesses, the mischievous ghosts, the tigers... But his mind was always full of quiet, normal things. There was no magic in him. He couldn't believe in miracles, or second chances. He remembered a teacher murmuring that his grades were excellent, his basic skills were excellent, but he'd never be a brilliant tactician. He lacked imagination.

Still, his father had no time for colorful or fanciful things.

And, anyway, he wanted to be like his father. That was what he was supposed to do. His father was stern and serious, always. How his whimsical mother had ended up with a grim person like him was beyond Sasuke's understanding.

Well, it didn't matter anymore.

He woke in darkness. He heard the sounds of night, felt the cool touch of night air on his skin. An open window. He felt the walls around him. There were torches... lanterns.. outside, somewhere. His vision was hazy, but he could see them. He was sure he could.

A vague sketch of a silent, peaceful house at nighttime. Orochimaru's childhood house, maybe. Orochimaru's memories.

Though, this was unusual genjutsu, to say the least. His entire side hurt. His head pounded, his feet stung, as if he'd worn the skin right off them. But other then that... Well. He was almost comfortable. He'd loved this feeling when he was young, tucked away in bed with his family house safe and silent, all around him.

It was feeling he had no use for, now. But if Orochimaru was trying to unnerve him, he'd have to try a lot harder.

He closed his eyes. Trying to clear his vision was tiring him out. It made his headache worse.

Orochimaru was trying his patience, lately. He was running out of time. Itachi was slipping away from him. And soon, Orochimaru would want to climb in under his skin, take whatever pound of flesh he needed. Sasuke didn't care about that. He had nothing left. But he had wanted to track Itachi in the Bird Country, ambush him in the quarries there, pin him to the rockface and carve out his heart. Orochimaru had forbidden it.

He needed Sasuke there, with him.

Orochimaru was months away from his final claim on him, but he wanted to ease his way in. He wanted to run endless tests and jutsus, slowly mingling himself. He had to work his tiresome dark magic. He wanted to carve sigils, lick blood from Sasuke's throat, call on demons.. it was all a lot of posturing and Sasuke was tired of it. He preferred the beatings and hard training, it was straightforward. And meanwhile, he had lost Itachi in the mists, again. He had no idea where Itachi was now, what he was doing, how strong he had become, nothing. Orochimaru played with his seal, his chakra, tried to play with his sense of reality. Sasuke wished Orochimaru would just get on with it.

Though, maybe, this was genjutsu to occupy his mind while Orochimaru diddled with his useless body. This was a bottle world, a hallucination to hold him still. He hurt so much that he didn't feel like moving, anyway. He could sleep forever, almost... if he didn't have Itachi to worry about. He wondered vaguely whether Orochimaru had broken his ribs, or if the pain was part of the jutsu.

And sleep returned. Dreamless. He fell to the bottom of that black well and didn't wake.

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Missing-nin were put to death.

They were often tortured first.

Hinata thought it likely, too, that he simply could have lain unconscious and undiscovered, and died of exposure. It wouldn't have been difficult. The nights were cold and wet at this time of year. Maybe the village scouts would find him when the spring thaw finally set in. A bloated corpse in anonymous clothing. Hinata thought of dying that way, alone and unnoticed. She shivered.

Or he could have been dismembered in the village square, dragged out by ANBU interrogators. Hinata remembered Naruto-kun and Sakura, both of them quietly heartbroken in their own way. Seeing the determination on Naruto's face, remembering it.. she couldn't abandon his teammate. It was no small task to carry him home, to sneak him into the village walls, and finally into her family house. But she managed it.

She found the oldest and most trusted of her family's retainers, the old cook Miya. She explained the situation. She put Uchiha Sasuke in a safe place, the last place anyone would look. She stood back as the old cook bent over him, peeling the dirty, torn clothes from his body. She fetched hot water and bandages. Outside, sunlight glittered off melting ice in the serene inner garden. As if nothing was amiss.

"Aaaah," the old cook muttered under her breath, disapprovingly. She tossed the last of his clothes to the side. Hinata turned her head, embarrassed. Miya caught her doing it, and smiled indulgently.

"Nothing I haven't seen before." she said, matter of factly. She had one hand on his bare skin, probing an inflamed, jagged cut in his side. "Hand me that knife, dear? Now, run off to the kitchen and tell Kimi-chan to sterilize some needles."

Hinata scuttled off, blushing.

When she returned, the cook glanced over her shoulder. A faint sheen of sweat glimmered on her forehead.

"Wound's septic. Looks like a sword cut, maybe." she pronounced. "See that? They twisted the blade." she beckoned with two bloodied fingers, and pointed. Hinata had to suppress the urge to take a step back. "It's not in his blood, but no wonder he's feverish.. poor boy." the old cook continued, not much bothered by any of this. She took the needles. "He's lucky he's not awake, it's been infected for days. He's going to regret whatever scuffle he got into..." Hinata turned away, uncomfortable, as the cook drained the wound.

She crossed the room, sat down against the wall. She waited to be sent for more supplies. But the cook simply worked silently, bandaging his feet now. Hinata found herself studying his face, his wet hair scattered over the pillow.

"I wonder what happened to him." she murmured. "He was so strong."

"Well, he's been running for days, from the look of this." the cook replied, not looking up. She lifted one of his feet, running a finger lightly over the blistered sole. "Foolish thing to do, if he's on the run.. coming back here."

Hinata knit her fingers together, worriedly.

Her family's servants were loyal. Miya ruled the others with a maternal iron fist. Hinata knew that if she ordered silence, the story of the missing-nin would go no further then the front gate.

Fate had conspired. It would not have been possible if her father had been home. She would not have felt confident that she could smuggle him in under Neji's nose. As it was, much of her extended family was traveling across the border to their ancestral home. She was alone with the family's staff of servants. And her sister, who would be home intermittently, out for day missions, some overnight journeys. She would swear the staff to secrecy. She would conceal his presence from her little sister. To be honest, she didn't know what to tell Hanabi. Why had she brought him home? Other then the simple desire to not see him freeze to death overnight...

The sticking point was the medics. They would recognize him. They would call ANBU. And ANBU, with killing irony, would revive him enough to withstand interrogation. Calling for them was out of the question. But she worried about the blood... that deep cut, swollen with infection. The fever, his battered feet.

The cook had residual healing knowledge. She'd bandaged Hinata's scraped knees and nicked hands. Hinata thought that she could call for Sakura-san, if necessary, but she worried about Naruto-kun's ability to keep a secret. Surely this one would force it's way out of him. Sakura-san would understand the need for secrecy. She'd know whether to tell Tsunade-sama. Or not.

All the same, Hinata breathed a sigh of relief when the old cook looked up, and said that he would recover.

"Rest, medicine, and good behavior." she said gruffly, wiping her hands off on her apron. "Those dressings will have to be changed daily. And if he insists on training too soon, like a fool..." Hinata wondered how much of that was directed at her "...he'll aggravate that sword cut, make things harder on himself."

"But he'll survive," Hinata pressed, softly.

"Mmmhmm." the cook grumbled. "Yes, yes." she waved her calloused hand, wet with soapy water now. "The herbs will take the swelling down. His fever should go in a day or two. His feet will heal, if he has the sense to stay in bed. I'll be around to check on him in the evening."

"Thank you, Miya-san." she murmured.

Another grumble, more affectionate this time. "Young people.." her sigh was indulgent. "Well, come to lunch, then. You're looking too skinny. And don't think I don't see those bruises on your knuckles." She patted Hinata's shoulder with one damp hand. "Come on now.. "

She ate in the kitchen, with the cook and her helpers. She listened to their friendly chatter with half an ear, mulling over her next move. She remembered Sakura-san and Naruto-kun. They had gone to the ends of the earth for this man.

But she had no idea what to tell them. She sensed the situation would spiral out of control, swiftly. And as she recalled, now, she'd seen Sakura-san at the market. Sakura had mentioned that Naruto was away on a surveillance mission. But even if she could go to Sakura, somehow keep this from the Hokage...

She needed time to think, to decide what to do. Her father would return in a week. Neji would be back shortly after. Uchiha Sasuke would have to heal, and leave unnoticed, by then. He would have to be healthy enough to flee the village.

And she had a bigger problem. She would have to talk to him. Explain herself. He wouldn't sleep forever. Soon, he would be awake.


	3. Morality

Night fell, swiftly.

Hinata trained, carving lines of energy against the darkening sky. She balanced herself atop the koi pond in the garden. She moved the water, losing herself in the familiar sounds of splashes, the familiar energy traces that moved all around her. She knelt over the surface, focused her byukagan. The water unfolded in thousands of concentric ripples under her spread hand.

"He's fine." Miya said, unprompted, as Hinata stepped back into the house. "Sleeping like a baby. I've had an extra futon put in Hanabi's room."

Hinata nodded gratefully.

"Why are you sleeping in my room tonight?" Hanabi asked her curiously, sitting up on her bed.

Hinata offered her a gentle, teasing smile over her bare shoulder. "Would you rather I didn't?" She folded her mesh shirt and placed it neatly atop her other clothes.

Hanabi tilted her head, uncertainly. A few locks of shiny dark hair slipped over her forehead. "It's okay... But.." she raised her eyebrows slightly. "..there's lots and lots of other rooms. You could sleep in father's room, if you wanted. He'd never know."

Hinata was absolutely certain that he would know, and he would also consider it to be extremely disobedient of her.

"I suppose I don't want be alone," she said, distantly. She busied herself with unfolding the quilt.

Hanabi lay back on her own futon with a graceless plop. "I still think it's weird." she said.

"I spilled lamp oil in my room." Hinata lied, clumsily. "It needs to air out." She concentrated on smoothing the creases out of one of the pillows.

"That doesn't sound very much like you," Hanabi murmured suspiciously.

"Well, we all make mistakes."

Hanabi studied her with a dubious look. "Come on, why are you _really _here?" She leaned over her futon, swinging her feet in the air. "Did you mess up a jutsu in there? Did you summon a weird animal? Like something really gross, like a giant slug?"

"No, Hanabi." She leaned over and extinguished the lanterns sitting by Hanabi's bed.

"I'll bet you did. I bet it's eating all of your clothes, right now."

"Go to sleep, Hanabi."

She closed her eyes. She remembered the feeling of his fevered skin under her hands, as she carried him. She heard her sister administer a few token kicks to her pillows, then settle down. And then Hinata was alone with her thoughts. With the crystal clear memory of his lean, strong body... pale and vulnerable and naked, on her bed. His hair gleaming midnight blue in the sunlight.

"Hanabi?" she said, softly. She didn't open her eyes.

The bedclothes rustled.

"You told me to go to sleep." Her sister giggled softly. "I don't wanna, anyway."

Hinata smiled, concealed in the darkness. "Well, could you tell me about your day?"

Hanabi snorted. She flopped one arm over her eyes. Hinata could recognize the sound.

"Nothing interesting happened."

"Then...tell me the least boring thing that happened."

A titter. "Can I make it up?"

Hinata turned her head, gazing out into the darkened garden, the lanterns that swayed in the cold wind. "Yes, that would be fine." she said, softly.

Hanabi told her a wild, implausible story about her sensei being attacked by a hoard of demon crows. They were after his snacks, and he would not relinquish them. There was a lot of amazingly bloodthirsty fighting, with particular focus on the brilliant, talented student who was the youngest daughter of a powerful clan. Hinata wondered what she would do without her spirited little sister. What would she do without her comfortable, safe home and her ordered life... Could she survive without these things? Could anyone? She was certain that she could not.

Hanabi fell asleep before the students and their sensei could defeat the crows... and Hinata drifted after her, safe in the embrace of her dreams, her peaceful life, her intact family.

She woke up to see heavy clouds hanging low over the horizon. By dawn, they were spilling freezing torrents of sleet onto the rooftops and streets.

Hinata stood at the window in the teacher's lounge, sipping tea. She looked out into the muddy, freezing mess that had become of the training yards. The temperature was falling, which meant that it would all turn to ice. Nara Shikamaru strolled up behind her. He was a jounin, a strategic specialist who dropped in to give special lectures to the graduating classes.

"Guess we should have war games today," he said, with a note of peevish indifference. He indicated the steadily freezing yards with a lit cigarette. "Half the brats will slip and break their necks at recess, anyway."

Hinata was lost in thought. Was Uchiha Sasuke going to be safe at her house? Would the servants leak the story? It would only take one of them, one making an unguarded comment outside the house. No one wanted to mess with Miya, but Miya still couldn't be watching every single one of them, every moment. Hinata had heard two of the younger girls whispering as she dressed- in a guest room- that morning. _That's the missing-nin _and _his whole family was killed _and _I heard that he joined the missing sennin _and _Hinata-sama brought him in, he's in Hinata-sama's room! _and _are you serious?_

Her fingers tightened on the teacup.

Shikamaru shoved his hands into his pockets, the cigarette drooping from his lips. "We should just kill all the little bastards," he added, nonchalantly.

Hinata was frowning out the window, only half-watching the downpour. What if Uchiha Sasuke woke up.. and was angry? What if he attacked the house? There were only a few branch house retainers on the grounds at the moment, would they be able to protect the servants? Was he dangerous? He'd defected from the village. Missing-nin were locked up for a reason.

"Don't you agree, Hinata-san?" Shikamaru said, smiling at her.

"..that's fine..." she murmured, preoccupied.

He lifted one eyebrow. She saw his amused glance in her peripheral vision, but she was busy thinking of going home, standing guard at the door of her room until he woke up, until she could make sure he was not dangerous. What had she been thinking, bringing him in? Leaving the servants alone? Maybe she should have taken the week off...

Shikamaru nodded, sagely. "I'll go unlock the weapons locker. Ok?"

"Mmm." she replied, thinking furiously. Calling for police guards, or asking Tsunade-sama for jounins to patrol the house would be, of course, impossible. And she couldn't take time off, it would look suspicious.

Shikamaru strolled off, a trail of smoke wafting after him. Jiggling keys. After a moment, she blinked.

"Wait.. Shikamaru-san!"

And he thought it was funny! It wasn't funny at all. He walked off down the hall, chuckling.

Hinata waved her hand in front of her nose, and pointedly cast a air-freshening jutsu.

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Sasuke woke again, in a particularly foul mood.

He was brutally thirsty. He was still in bed, still in that cheerful room, it's wooden shutters half opened onto a neatly kept stone garden. He was tiring of this. He had work to do. Orochimaru probably intended to annoy him with captivity and subliminal hints of his previous life. It was working. He was very, _very _annoyed.

And there, on the low wooden table next to the futon, a pitcher of water, two empty wooden teacups. Orochimaru trying to gain his favor.. or lull him into a false sense of security.

Well, he didn't care. He would worry about Orochimaru in a moment. Sitting up hurt like hell. His throat tightened against the water as he forced it down. His stomach turned over. The whole ordeal wore him out completely, he collapsed back on the pillows, out of breath.

He raised one arm to wipe the sweat from his brow. Moving his arm _also _hurt like hell. He grimaced.

He looked around, trying to make sense of his surroundings.

Genjutsu of a bedroom, clean sheets smelling faintly of flowers. More flowers, dried ones, in a little stone pot on the table. A small carved Buddha. Candles. Books neatly stacked on a shelf. A picture in a frame. Typical Konoha kitsch, three genin with a jounin sensei. The jounin had long dark hair. It was set across the room, too far away for him to make out her face, or those of the three genin in front of her. Clean, well-tended walls and floor, polished and free of chipped paint, torn wallpaper, scratches... A room in the house of an wealthy Konoha ninja clan. Not a guest room. Someone lived here.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sudden arrival of...

He rubbed his eyes with one hand. Very carefully. It still hurt.

...an old woman, wearing plain work clothes, her sleeves pinned up to her elbows. She didn't knock.

"Awake already?" she said, brusquely. She set a wooden tray down by the bed. He glanced over, unsure of what to expect. Instruments of torture? A tray full of hot water, pins, bandages. Small jars of medicine. A steaming pot of tea. He blinked at her, momentarily too surprised to say anything.

"Sit up," she said, with the air of someone who was used to being obeyed, instantly. When he hesitated, she said, sternly "Hinata-sama did not lug you over ten miles of rough terrain so you could die of a blood infection, young man. Sit up."

_Hinata-sama? _he thought. _Hyuga Hinata? _He vaguely remembered her from the academy. A very shy, quiet girl. But the old woman was glaring at him now, her hands on her hips. He didn't have the energy for a confrontation. He sat up, wincing as he did.

"Where am I?" he asked her, suspiciously.

She yanked back the covers. He saw that he was half naked. And those cotton boxers were _not _his underwear. And there was blood on the hem, fresh blood, wetness against his side... what the hell? What the fucking _hell?_

"You've torn the stitches already." The old woman clicked her tongue disapprovingly. "I wish I were surprised." He looked down on tightly bandaged ribs, a fresh red splotch soaking through one side. He looked from it, to her.

He officially had no idea what was going on.

"Where am I?" he repeated, momentarily too bewildered to glare.

"You're in the house of Hyuga." She said, getting out what looked like an _extremely _sharp knife. "Hinata-sama found you half dead in the woods yesterday." With a few accurate, clean slices, she cut the bandages away. "If I had to guess, I'd say you ran into a samurai. I hope you learned your lesson."

He scowled down at the angry wound she uncovered. Orochimaru had some samurai weapons. He had a fetish for them. And toxins, too, now that Sasuke thought about it. Orochimaru and his passion for snakebite... A glint of metal caught his eye. The old woman was threading a needle, he really wished she'd stop coming at him with sharp objects. Lighting a small candle, she held the point in the flame.

"This is going to hurt, but it will hurt a lot less if you hold still." she said.

She was right about that first part, anyway.

She left him freshly bandaged, and with stern orders to drink the tea she brought, as well as the miso. The bathroom was down the hall, but she did not want to see him out of bed for one instant otherwise. She would have someone named Momo-chan bring him books, if he liked. But she wanted him to sleep. He was too disoriented by all of this to argue with her.

He lay back, staring at the ceiling.

His hand went to his neck, unconsciously feeling for the hot touch of the seal. He closed his eyes, feeling it's harsh energy, like a second heartbeat. Unless Orochimaru was impersonating the old woman through a combined henge... that, plus the feeling of hard reality, the duration of it, the sharp sensory impression of his injured body... This was not genjutsu. He was in Konoha. He was in the Hyuga clan's house. Hyuga Hinata, of all people, had carried him to her house. The flowers, an expensive silk kimono neatly folded over a chair across the room. the picture... this was probably her room. This was _her _bed. He had been bleeding on her sheets. He groaned softly, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand.

His seal was a lost cause. His chakra was weak, and low. Whatever he'd done, or more precisely, whatever Orochimaru had done to him, had completely exhausted his body.

He concentrated on reconstructing his memory. A headlong flight through mountain terrain, then forests. Icy rivers. A simple endurance test? Orochimaru sitting back in his lair, pulling the puppet strings.

Orochimaru had probably been playing with the sharingan, too reckless to bother to use it properly. That would explain his exhausted chakra. And Sasuke couldn't recall a samurai, or any sort of fight, Orochimaru had probably just done the slicing himself. Any of his collection of venoms and toxins could account for the infection. Orochimaru could have made it look like a battle wound, just to mess with Sasuke's head. Orochimaru had a fucking sick sense of humor sometimes. Most of the time. _All _of the time. He had to get better so he could get back to Otogakure and wring Orochimaru's scaly neck.

He forced the tea down, then the soup. His throat ached. His stomach threatened to toss it all up again at any moment. He finally had to curl up pathetically, like a small sick child. He was too weak to sit upright. He was going to fucking _kill _Orochimaru for this.

In the meantime, he was stuck here. In Konoha. Konoha being full of all sorts of interfering, nosy people. He wondered if Naruto was already on his way, or if he'd stopped to stuff his face first. Sakura would be with him, for certain. He sighed. There would be a lot of screaming, and Sakura would cry, and then he'd feel even more guilty then usual. He really didn't have the energy for any of that, right now. Maybe he could pretend to be asleep until they left.

And just then, he heard a soft murmuring sound. A trace of a giggle.

He sat up sharply, which was something that continued to hurt like hell. He caught himself before he could wrench the stitches again. He ran one hand over the bandages, no bleeding yet. He wasn't looking forward to another encounter with the old woman's needle. And that sound had come from the far corner of the room, near the open shutters. He scowled, watching.

After a moment of close examination, he picked up one of the pillows. He threw it lightly at that spot.

It bounced off empty air.

"Uh oh," a young, female voice said. There was the sound of bare feet across the wooden floor. A blurry impression of long dark hair and a loose dark-colored jacket as she lost her grip on the jutsu.

He frowned, irritated. It was a simple genin-level hiding technique, a genjutsu suggestion to overlook what was right in front of him. It only worked on very distracted people, or those who were not expecting it at all. And it didn't work at all if you giggled while using it.

A soft footfall in the doorway, too light to be the old woman again. That Momo-chan person with the books? The little feet sounds squealed to a halt. He glanced up.

Another girl, an older teenager, long dark hair. Pale eyes.

The older girl caught the small, blurred figure by the shoulders, dissolving the last of her illusion. "Hanabi..!" she exclaimed. She had a very soft voice.

The little girl took one look at the older one and her entire face lit up in a cheerfully mischievous grin. "Oneesan, there's a _boy _in your room," she announced gleefully, pointing. "There's a boy in your bed! Is he your _boyfr- _hey!" The older girl had swiftly sidestepped around the little one, clapping her hand over the little girl's mouth.

"I apologize," she said to him, bowing slightly. She had the little girl completely immobilized in her arms. The little girl kicked and struggled to no avail. The older girl smiled, a bit nervously. "Please excuse us."

Sasuke merely stared after them like words were failing him.

Which they were.

------------------------------

"He's a guest, Hanabi." Hinata said, having safely removed her little sister to a distant part of the house.. "That was very rude of you!"

Hanabi scuffed her bare foot along the floor, sullenly. "I wanted to see."

"I asked you to-"

"'You were acting _weird, _oneesan." Hanabi interrupted, giving her a pointed look. "And I'm not a little kid anymore, you and father never tell me anything."

"Maybe if you didn't behave like a little kid..." Miya said, unobtrusively, from across the room. Hanabi glared at her. Miya calmly folded clothes, setting them in clean piles. "And you should listen to your sister." she added.

"I _am _listening to my sister." Hanabi retorted, crossing her arms. Then her lips twitched. She eyed Hinata, smirking.

"He _is _your boyfriend, isn't he? He's your boyfriend!"

Hinata stood over her, looking down crossly. "That isn't funny, Hanabi." Hanabi just smiled in a way that said she not only thought it _was _funny, she also would be delighted to do the whole thing all over again.

Hinata stepped back from her sister and sat down, tiredly. She felt as if she had sleepwalked through her classes, worrying. Then she'd come home to find her little sister using an invisibility jutsu to _sneak around her room._

"I'm very angry with you, Hanabi." she said, as if that would make any difference to her sister. "You could have been hurt."

Hanabi rolled her eyes. Hinata glanced at Miya, who shrugged, mildly. But she also locked eyes with Hinata for a second, giving her a significant look. _And what were you expecting, when you brought that man into the house? _

Hinata felt her fists clench. She had to own this decision. She had to take responsibility for it, she had to act like the Hyuga heir, rather then a timid little mouse. "Hanabi," she said, sharply.

Hanabi looked up, a bit surprised.

Hinata stood up. "If you're ready for adult secrets, then you have to be ready to handle them. Are you?"

Hanabi looked a bit startled. "Uh... yeah. I mean, yes." She blinked up at her sister.

Hinata fixed her with a very stern look. "You have to keep this a secret. Do you understand? No one can know he's here. You are not under _any _circumstances to tell your sensei, your teammates, your friends or _any _other adult besides Miya and me. Do you understand me, Hanabi?" She couldn't believe the steeliness in her own voice. It seemed to come from someone else. And Hanabi was looking at her like she'd just grown another head.

Hanabi blinked, and looked down for a moment. Then she said, a bit confused "Why? I mean.. I won't tell, but why is it a secret?"

"He's a missing-nin, brat." Miya said, with gruff affection. She reached over and ruffled Hanabi's hair. "They'll chop him up into little pieces and feed him to the crows."

"Because dangerous people will come and kill him," Hinata added, watching. "He's sick, and he needs to be left alone."

And she also had no idea how dangerous _he _could be. He wasn't her teammate. He was Naruto-kun's. She remembered Naruto being carried back to the village in his wild-haired sensei's arms. He'd just come from a long chase, Hinata heard the whispers that spread through the rookie nine. He'd been chasing Uchiha Sasuke. And Sasuke had tried to kill him. She sat down, hard, on the bench again. She felt almost dizzy.

She looked over at Miya, almost longingly. It was so much easier to be a timid mousy girl, have someone else run the house. Would it be like this always, when her father was gone?

At least Hanabi seemed to have lost interest in the subject. "He looks really mean, anyway." she was telling the cook. "Like, _this _mean!" She made a ferocious face, sticking out her tongue and fluttering her fingers. "Boys are either mean or stupid, and they're _all _perverts!" She wandered off to the training garden, dragging her jacket behind her.

Hinata watched her go, and slowly exhaled.

"Am I doing the right thing..?" she whispered.

Miya was moving the folded clothes into wooden baskets, ready to be carried to various rooms.

"Was it right?" she repeated, almost desperately. "Bringing him here?"

Miya reached over and gathered one rough old arm around Hinata's shoulders, a basket balanced in the crook of the other.

"I think your heart is in the right place." she said, not unkindly. "If there's any right way about this, you'll find it, dear."

Hinata watched her distribute the baskets to some of the younger house staff. She got to her feet.

She went up to her room. She eased open the door.

Semi-darkness. Outside, the sun was setting against torn masses of clouds.

A soft rhythm of breathing. He was asleep, motionless. She curled her fingers around the doorframe.

Her byakugan saw the low watermark of his chakra. He wouldn't have the energy to get up, would he? He couldn't attack anyone, in this state... She narrowed her eyes, trying to see intent, the shape of his thoughts. She didn't know him, she knew nothing about what sort of person he was, _what had she been thinking?_

But Naruto-kun had begged Tsunade-sama. He'd _begged_ her, standing out in the hospital courtyard, arguing with her. All for one second chance to find the missing-nin, Uchiha Sasuke. The one who had almost killed him. Hinata bit her lip.

She closed the door, and let him sleep.


	4. Family

Dawn, in the house of Hyuga.

A somber winter's day. In a warm heated room, bounded by solid wooden walls, in a house full of drowsy morning lantern light, the subdued bustle of serving staff. The faint scent of boiling tea leaves, wafting up through the wooden floors.

"You'll never want anything but me," Orochimaru had said. Once.

Surrounded by the Hyuga family's house, their solar symbols carved into walls, embroider into drapes, flags, sleeves. The older girl, who had one stitched into the back of her jacket. Pale, purple silk threads. A wintery, quiet whisper of a sun.

Wondering about her...

Nocturnal, like peaceful fields of unbroken snow. Pure and sweet in a way that he could have, or hold, or be allowed to touch, without dirtying it somehow.

But she had a soft voice, which soothed his nerves. And she had skin that looked soft, too, as if it would yield just slightly, if he touched her... She had soft curves, swelling under her modest clothes; which gave her a sense of propriety. And quiet mystery, for what he couldn't see. And he could barely imagine, his mind was full of Orochimaru's filthy words; and of memories he couldn't quite chase away, because Orochimaru had taken this part of him and made it his own.

But. She had a warm house that was peaceful, for the most part. And she was sharing it with him, a stranger with blood too far from hers to matter. He saw the Buddhist altars, the candles lit in the courtyard, where the relentless wind snuffed them out, as the sky turned wooly shades of whitening grey. Only one fiery line of sunrise in the far, far distance, behind black cliffside. The servants came out to light them again. They covered the north windows, to chase the bad spirits away. And opened others to the south, to let the good ones in.

When this was new to him, he'd felt the good and bad spirits in his own blood, as if they were moving through him. As he shot fire, lightning; a flash as brief as that, that lit up the entire world... But that light was cold. And he was ashamed, always, as he washed the fluids from his hands. But he sensed the seductive power in it. He felt it's danger, and he sensed that this was just another dark, lawless energy, one to be used...

...as Orochimaru used him. As a conduit.

Or a container, as Itachi had said, so long ago, Sasuke being too young and stupidly naive to understand.

When he was thirteen and his body had begun to betray him in ways that he had forgotten to expect; or had imagined would somehow never happen to him. And which Orochimaru could sense, somehow, as if he could smell Sasuke with the tip of his tongue.

"I'll take care of that for you," Orochimaru said.

From the sallow, wizened people of the village, Orochimaru brought Sasuke the girls. And they were not young. He judged them as being almost twice his age. They treated him more like mothers. Guiding hands. Gentle encouragement. As if Orochimaru had reached down and unearthed what Sasuke would want, what he wouldn't even understood he wanted, until it was given to him.

They wore powder, like storybook geishas. They had painted lips that left smudged red rings on his body, as they sucked at him, and as Orochimaru watched, his eyes glistening in deep shadow. And when Sasuke sank to his knees, exhausted, Orochimaru killed one woman. Then the other.

Sasuke remembered, in particular detail, the way the woman's neck had buckled, then split, like the limb of a ball-joined doll. Her snapped spinal cord flopped wetly, like a cut string.

"Soon, all you'll want is this." Orochimaru told him, in a low, honeyed voice that made Sasuke's stomach clench. The way Orochimaru hissed his name, caressing the syllables, turning it into something disgusting and bittersweet. Orochimaru groped at his hair, and then his neck, with a hot, wet hand. Orochimaru's skeletal hand stroking him, as Sasuke shivered, because Orochimaru had flicked his tongue, striking him at the tip of his collapsed penis, making him jump, and bite down on a whimper. And Orochimaru heard, it only seemed to excite him more. Orochimaru ran teasing wet fingers over Sasuke's cheeks. His forehead. And then his eyelids, as Sasuke closed his eyes tightly.

"When I've dyed you in _my _colors.." Orochimaru whispered luxuriantly in his ear. "...ah... when I've turned you into me, turned you inside out.." Orochimaru's hand slithering down, then his mouth, hot with the dead women's blood and visceria, as if these could give him mystical powers and divination of the future. "I'll turn into you, then.." Orochimaru swallowing him whole, just then. The tight rings of muscle in Orochimaru's throat tensing and working all over him, bringing him erect again, and then refusing to let him go. Until he spilled again. And again, as if Orochimaru wanted to suck the life right out of him. And he knew that Orochimaru wanted everything. If there was anything left to Sasuke, after he had lost everything, Orochimaru wanted it.

Orochimaru lounging back like a bloated, satisfied mosquito, watching as Sasuke put his clothes back on.

"You know you'll never want anything but me." Orochimaru said. And Sasuke was amazed that Orochimaru could make him feel so small and filthy, and do it so effortlessly.

Morning now, with the sun up behind the clouds, and the house came fully awake. He got up and took care of his weak body in the bathroom, washing his hands with strong lye soap. He wouldn't jerk off in her bed. He had some flicker of pride left to him, some small drop that Orochimaru had forgotten to lap up.

------------------------------------------------------

"Spring isn't coming early this year." Miya was saying. She handed the matches to Momoe, one of her senior kitchen girls. "Go light the candles. And tell the gardeners to come in, before their finger bones freeze right off!"

The old cook fed the woodstove, standing watch as the servant girl ventured into the icy courtyard garden. Hinata sat at the kitchen table, in the glow of furnace cross drafts. Even the clay tiles were warm under her feet.

Kimiko, the other girl, tended the boiling kettle. She sang softly under her breath.

Hinata was imagining herself having a conversation with Sakura-san.

First there would be polite small talk. How was Naruto-kun? How was Tsunade-sama? Oh, her father was fine. He was feeling much better. Neji? He was well. Yes, it was a very nice day. Her students were all wonderful. Bright, bubbly children. Lee was doing very well, he was a natural teacher. No, she hadn't heard this latest bit of gossip. My, that was far more interesting and scandalous then the missing-nin who was absolutely _not_ sleeping in her bed at this very moment. Unless, of course, he was leaving a bloody trail through her family home, carving up her staff. Which he wasn't. Because he wasn't there at all. Yes.

Well, Sakura-san, she was just thinking about the time Uchiha Sasuke had tried to kill your husband. Did Sakura remember that? Oh, she was just wondering if Sakura felt that Sasuke would be a danger to others, should he return. Oh, no reason for asking. Yes, very nice weather. Give her regards to Tsunade-sama.

Hinata pinched her nose bridge delicately. She hadn't slept well.

One of the house cats wandered over, wrapping itself around her legs. It was the one that her sister had named after Naruto, because, as Hanabi had put it, it 'had the same hair.'

"Tea?" Kimiko said, sympathetically.

"Pour her a drink." Miya called from the kitchen, now, where she was supervising several apprentices in rolling fresh noodle dough. She cackled.

"Please." Hinata said, weakly, as Kimiko fetched the sake. Hinata scooped the animal into her lap, stroking it's shaggy fur where it spiked on the crown of it's head, probably a permanent startle reaction from the experience of living with Hanabi.

"He's kind of cute," Kimiko offered, setting the small saucer down. Hinata tried to smile at her, but couldn't quite manage it.

"I heard that he can kill people just by looking at them," one of the apprentices said.

"Stupid," the cook muttered mildly, bopping him on the head with her wooden spoon. "If you have time to yap, kneed harder!"

"I have to go to work." Hinata murmured, to no one in particular.

"Go," Miya told her, bluntly. "Shoo. He couldn't slap around a newborn kitten at the moment. We'll be fine."

The sake steamed into Hinata's face. It burned her lips, as she sipped it slowly.

"I suppose." she said, finally. "I just wonder if... he'll be well enough to leave, when father returns." And Miya replied with a long, thoughtful harrumph.

"Well, if that's all it is.." she muttered. She rummaged in the pocket of her apron. After a moment she set a small glass bottle of pills in Hinata's hand. "That'll help with his chakra," she said. And Hinata asked why she was being given it, when Miya was the one who brought him the medicines.

"It'll give him his strength back." Miya replied absently, pausing to swat another apprentice lightly. She snorted. "Why indeed!"

The kitchen lapsed into it's comfortable rhythms of warmth, and the voices of the servants swirled around her. The cat butted it's silky head into the bottom of her chin, purring. Hinata knew that she could not, would not go through another day like yesterday, all used up with worry... so that she had no energy or attention to give her students, to do her job with pride.

Or to even hold her head up with pride, as the Hyuga heir.

_Smarten up, _she told herself.

Naruto was far away, out on surveillance over fields and across oceans, too far away to be implored upon, to give her strength. His wife was working under the wing of the Hokage; and in the quiet spaces of the hospital, where Hinata had found her, that one afternoon when she went to fetch heart medication for her father.

_Get up, _she thought.

She found him awake, turned over on his uninjured side to watch the sunrise. The grey light of the day cast subtle shadows on his face, though he didn't look up for one long, endless moment... as she pulled over the chair, from her desk.

"Here," she said, after she had poured for them both.

He looked at the porcelain saucer steaming in her hand, his expression almost sardonic.

"Is this all right with the old hag?" he growled, low in his throat. Hinata watched him uncurl his hand from the edge of the quilt, and finally take it from her. She felt the hard calluses on his fingers. And she met his dark eyes, squarely.

"I have no idea," she said. Her voice sounded hard as steel, even to her. She tipped her saucer back.

He watched her, the motion of her throat, as she swallowed.

She poured for him, and then for herself, once more. He drank, grimacing slightly. When he handed her the saucer again, she said "I can't get drunk. I have to go to work."

He looked right at her, and her insides quivered. But somehow her voice stayed steady. She could feel it with her fingers, the Hyuga crest, molded into the smooth side of the sake bottle.

"I need to know that it's safe for me to leave you in my house." she said.

His face shifted into a glare, his eyes seeming to turn an even darker shade of black, as he did. But she held his gaze.

"Promise me." she said.

Outside, the bare branches of trees whipped in the fierce winds. She realized, as the silence stretched, that he was holding her gaze too, holding the intensity of his expression. He wasn't looking away.

Until he did.

His hair looked soft, almost, when it fell into his eyes like that. For a moment she thought that she'd upset him, and she said, more gently "I trust Naruto-kun, I trust his judgment."

"This isn't a place for someone like me," he snapped suddenly, his voice hard and cold.

He still did not look at her.

And something in her instantaneously hardened. Her resolve, because he was talking about her family, something he _did not _know about, and didn't have the right to do.

"I want you to not hurt anyone in this house." she told him, more harshly then she had ever imagined she could. "This is my family." Anger spiked through her, out of nowhere, like jagged lighting. "Show some respect!" she heard herself snap.

And he raised his head, the motion slow, almost elegant. A particularly unkind smile hinted over his lips, and he said, dark eyes trained on her "What would your father say?" Like it was a taunt. But it only snapped things into hard clarity for her.

"My father is away." she told him, getting up. "You will have to leave before then, whether you're healed or not. The ANBU," the words were coming to her, they wouldn't stop. She had to pause, gather her breath again, before she could continue. "The ANBU will arrest my entire family, if we're found to be harboring a missing-nin." She held his gaze, and she felt her byakugan winking, as she tightened her fingers on the sake bottle. Standing over him, she saw the bare tree branches waving silently behind him, behind the neat line of medicine bottles on the windowsill. "Naruto-kun trusts you, and I will trust you." Her fist clenched. "Promise me!"

Silence.

His eyes were closed, though he hadn't turned his head. He'd simply closed them, his expression turning grim, almost merely serious. But it was blank, holding all this thoughts and motives and the truth of who he really was, whether he really could be trusted, holding all that within himself, so she couldn't see.

He nodded.

She stood, and waited for him to open his eyes. His word was enough. It would have to be.

"I'll have Miya send you breakfast, then." she said, when he did. "And these pills will restore your chakra."

She left the sake bottle on the table near the bed, the glass pill bottle beside it.

------------------------------------------------

So, he wondered. As morning deepened, in the house of Hyuga.

Left alone, as always. Lonely. That would be hard for others to believe. That would be hard for _him _to believe.. and was. He never wanted anyone around. But it was hard being alone. Sometimes... It was hard to be with people, too.

After she left, and after another girl about her age brought him a hot tray of food, he lay back, watching the storm gathering outside. Rain already pattered at the windows. Today, they'd opened the wooden shutters. And beyond the wall of the little garden outside, it's tiny bare bonsai trees, he could see the misty shadow of the village skyline, just starting to disappear into the clouds.

No one would believe... that he didn't enjoy it. Being nasty, cruel.. biting every hand offered to him, spitting in the face of anyone who dared to come close. It made him feel even more wretched then he normally felt, and that was a damn good trick right there.

He looked for it, and found it instantly. Never far, always close at hand. Sneering indifference, which covered all ills, which seemed to just _fix _him, like hatred did, where nothing else could.

But he found he had no taste for it. Surrounded with the solar symbols, the warm walls. Her family. Five days, she said. A very short time, for someone who'd been run through with a samurai blade.

He took the pills, washed them down with the last of the sake. Alcohol numbed him, and not in a way he liked. But it was good enough for now. It made him drowsy, and relaxed. Like things could run without him for a while...

He closed his eyes, willing the seal to awaken again, to push him along in the healing process.

And it did.

He woke, and wrenched the stitches, cursing them.. cursing Orochimaru, vowing to hold Orochimaru down, rip him open. Sew him up repeatedly with a scalding hot needle. See how much _he _liked it.

But his seal was alive. And the energy was moving, he could stand. And he could hold his hands steady. He found a man's shirt and pants, folded neatly on the desk.

Wondering about her... because he was alone with his thoughts, and he couldn't help himself. Surrounded with the unassailable safety of her house. _My house, _she had said. _My family. _With that unconscious note in her voice, the pride of belonging,

She had extracted the promise, shamed him into it... with a soft hand. Wasn't that what the Hyuga did? With their byakugan eyes, their gentle fists. Their powerful house clan, larger and richer, and more influential then even the Uchiha had been. When the house still stood... The deeds now, sitting in trust for him, waiting for him to turn nineteen, when a whole district of the city would fall into his hands. He wondered if they'd just torn the whole district down, by now. If this old village had finally given him up for dead, once and for all.

And in the early evening, she was there.

Hyuga Hinata, a stranger's name that gave her a sense of distance, because he barely remembered her in any other way. Down in the gardens in the center of her house. Protected from the wind by it's sturdy walls, like nothing could ever harm her, here. Training, because she did not see him. Because he veiled his chakra, using the same technique her little girl had used.

As he watched her train, her hands moving so fast that he couldn't see. Thinking. Imagining, as best he could.

So much would have to be done. So much ground would have to be covered. She was so, _so _far away from him. Like a ghost, for all he'd ever be able to catch up to her. He spent his life watching things that retreated in the distance, that never noticed him, and never came closer. Was he tiring of it? Maybe he was broken, somehow, now. Maybe Orochimaru had finally broken his will.

Or maybe...

..he was just hung over, and stupidly, foolishly, _weakly _maudlin, all the sudden. Forgetting himself in a few drunken fantasies...

He remembered Sakura, telling him that she knew he hated her, that he'd always hated her. Always.. as if he had no feelings, no desires, nothing of his own.

But he wanted, and he felt.

That was the problem.

--------------------------

The children slipped and fell on the ice, even though the teachers sifted endless sacks of sand over the academy grounds. The rain came down, and the children came in with soaked pantlegs, bruised knees. Hinata smoothed so many patterned bandages over scrapes and purpling spots that she found herself wrapping one around her own hand, her aching fingers.

She ran home, and lost herself in the running, her feet finding their way through the patches of ice.

Her house faded out of the darkened cloudy sky, against the angry storm gathering in the east. It's windows were full of warm yellow lantern light, beckoning. In the west, the clouds were broken, and sunlight peeked through ragged holes, lighting one side of the houses, the buildings... as the sun set early.

She slowed to walk as she arrived at the gate. She bowed her head briefly at the small shrine tucked there, and then she felt the south and east wings of the house enclose her, protectively, as she walked into the outer gardens. She looked up, up three stories. And there he was, perched on the high gable of the roof; bright against the uneasy dark clouds, with the sun picking up the sheen of his hair, the sickly paleness of his skin. He was wearing the light colors of Hyuga robes. Neji's clothes, set out for him by the staff.

She watched him stroll the length of the high roof backwards, his eyes closed. One bandaged foot behind the other. He tensed lightly, then sprung backwards, his hands catching the rail, his feet unerringly finding it a moment later. She saw the red patch seeping through his bandaged side, as he raised his arms for another handspring.

Another. Three. Four. Then he balanced on his haunches and paused. The wind worried at his loose clothes. With his eyes covered, he looked comfortably anonymous. Just another handsome young man with unruly dark hair.

Hinata stood still as a statue, frowning worriedly. If Miya saw him, she'd wave her wooden spoon at him and shout for him to come down _immediately _and to not get blood on the roof, and to not carry on like a damn fool with these stunts when he wasn't healed, and to at least put on a goddamn warmer coat for the love of god..

And likely, he would ignore her. And then Hinata would have to do something.

With even that little glimmer of strength she'd found.. she had little confidence in her ability to persuade him to do anything. Would she be able to force him? The pills must have done their work. And even if they had not, she didn't relish the idea of a physical confrontation.

She sighed, wishing he'd come down. If Hanabi saw him up there, it would give her ideas. And then Hinata would have to get Hanabi off the roof.

She went to change her clothes.

The clouds rolled in, pushed by the icy winds. Snow was falling, lightly, when she pulled herself up onto the roof. The gable was iced over, slippery and wet now under her feet; as she walked carefully, catlike, balancing a small tea tray. The sun was gone now, behind a thick ragged curtain of cloud. He was sitting at the other end of the gable, his back to her. A few light flakes of snow had fallen into his hair.

Her foot slipped. She bit off a gasp. The heavy clay teapot quivered. His hand tightly on her forearm, suddenly, as he pulled her steady.

She looked up from her arm, startled, and into his dark eyes. The wind tossing his dark hair, framing his pale face. He took his hand away. almost immediately.

There was no particular anger in his eyes, at that moment. But she could not read them. She looked into him with her byakugan, she saw the chakra shadow of his sharingan behind the dark iris of each eye. She was aware, suddenly, of her own heartbeat. Total silence had fallen. The snow blunted even the soft ambient noise of the village at rest.

After a moment, he simply bent, and sat back down on the gable.

She set the tray down between them, and then joined him. Her fingers were red and numb with cold, but the tea was piping hot as she poured it.

He took the cup she offered. He had the decency to look at her this time, as she handed it to him. His eyes formed a silent question.

"Because it's very cold out here." she said.

_And because you are all alone, _she thought.

They drank in silence. She turned, and saw that he wasn't staring out into the swirling clouds. He was looking down, into the steaming circle of his cup.

"You're my guest." she said, rising. "You're welcome to stay in my house."


	5. Commerce

She dreamed about him, exactly as she had seen him that moment.

She'd stepped up on the roof. Looked up, and seen him. And the moment before, when she'd caught sight of him from the ground, when he'd gleamed white and pale blue against dark storm clouds.

Where had he been before? Before he'd become the focus of everything, it seemed, Naruto and Sakura had to give. As if he was still something they carried between them, unspoken. Like a secret.

He'd been in her academy class. When she looked at him on paper, he was at the top, consistently at the top in the archived grade lists. She remembered that she knew of him. She knew his name, it was something that just existed. The top of the class. But where was _he, _the actual person that he was? Nowhere. Silent. Dark clothes. And then, after they graduated, a silent dark shadow who stood behind Naruto and Sakura. As if he was trying to fade into them. Was he already leaving then, somewhere in his head? What was it that made them go so far for him, what did they see? But maybe they didn't know what it was, themselves. Maybe it was the simple desire to not see him die. Maybe Hinata had seen it herself, she thought, because she dreamed of him, his dark eyes, the sharingan shadow behind them, all night.

She woke uneasily. She was disoriented for a minute, not recognizing Hanabi's room. Hanabi was gone with her team on a mission to a neighboring village. Hinata had slept on the spare futon on the floor. She'd been too tired to reason about this. She'd just lain down, closed her eyes, and fallen asleep.

How did he make her feel... It seemed like a stupid question. She couldn't answer it, and it made her feel uncomfortable in some squirmy way. She had not been afraid of him once, though. Not even as he'd glared hard at her.

Maybe it was just that she was in her house.. that should could call for the scatter of branch house guards at any second. She lay in the early morning darkness, thinking. She had been suddenly, sharply angry with him. The strength, the iron confidence in her voice... it had just materialized, out of nowhere.

But she was protecting her house, and her family. That was her blood. Of course she would feel that way, about that.

It wasn't his handsome face, even as her memory lingered over it... the snow caught in his hair. It wasn't the way he'd felt in her arms, bleeding and feverish and stubbornly alive, despite it all.

She was shy, her shyness cost her the life all the other girls seemed to have, the fun they had with boyfriends, and with lovers. But it gave her time, too. It gave her space to think about what she would want, should she someday find the confidence to have it. She knew it wasn't important to her, the strong, elegant lines of a man's face and body. It was what lay behind it, under his skin, beyond even the lines of chakra. The parts she could never see, because they were hidden... mysterious...

She almost wished... that she could ask Naruto and Sakura why they loved him so much. It couldn't be for nothing.

She closed her eyes. She turned over, carefully pulling her long hair from being pinned under her cheek.

He made her feel safe. It made no sense. But he made her feel safe. Safety... strength. To her, these were the same things. She'd never realized it before. Her softness, her desire to seek harmony, to comfort... To share what she had with him, what he did not... A family, a house. As simple as that, as warmth and shelter. It gave her a sense of strength, as if she finally had done something, even if it was such a small thing. It made her feel connected to her house, to her family, when he looked at her. It gave her the strength to look him in the eye, and not be afraid.. to not even be nervous at all.

"You're just attracted to him, dear." Miya said, after Hinata had poured her heart out, feeling young and silly even as she spoke. "It's not exactly a Confucian riddle, is it?" She smiled, distantly. "You've always been shy, around boys..." They were sipping tea. Miya was sitting on the end of Hinata's futon, pausing in her bustling morning route around the house.

Hinata nodded, feeling an old familiar twinge of shame.

"What do you think...?" she asked.

"What, of him?" Miya snorted, though she softened it with a half-smile. "Well, I think he's so angry and hurt that he wouldn't know his own ass if it snuck up and bit him." She shook her head, wiping off her teacup with the edge of the apron that was folded over her shoulder. A fresh one for the day, freshly laundered, thick white cotton. "I suppose most young people seem that way, when you get as old as I am." She chuckled, softly.

Hinata watched her, the comfortable lines etched into her face, the smile lines around her eyes, as they crinkled. "Do I... seem that way to you..?" she said, hesitantly. She couldn't put her hand on that glimmer of strength suddenly, she was too sunken in this uncomfortable feeling. Not just shyness. She felt it again, that old familiar feeling that there was something wrong with her, that she was doing something.. anything... wrong. As if she'd always do something wrong, somehow...

"Mmhmm." Miya harrumphed. "No, you're different. I've never seen any anger in you. Even your sister, throwing tantrums every day... You're not lost, dear.. I think you're waiting. You doubt yourself, but..." she chuckled softly, reaching over to stroke a wisp of Hinata's hair from her cheek. Her rough fingers were gentle. "..leading with your heart isn't so bad. It seems to steer you right."

Hinata listened, watching the hot water. She found herself absently imagining the currents of heat that would swirl within the cup, if she were to use her byakugan. "I hope so." she said. "I hope I'm right. I hope I can be.."

A thoughtful grumble from the cook. "You'll be a fine heir. Even your father will admit it, eventually. Worrying about it is foolish, just _be." _she withdrew her hand, and Hinata heard the clink of earthenware as she gathered up the tea tray. "But it's about the boy, and I know it. That has nothing to do with your inheritance, dear."

"It's not just him.." she murmured. She lay back down, turning her head slightly to watch Miya lift the tray and balance it on her hip. She curled her fingers over the tops of the covers. "But, that was the first decision I made, as the heir.. with that thought in mind."

"Well, they were the same as us, once. Some would say we should have taken him in." The cook shrugged. "But I can tell you." She looked Hinata in the eye. She had placed her teacup back on the tray, dried and set upside down. "I remember when it happened. His whole family.. and just a little child, all alone.." she shook her head, slowly. Then her gaze was back, steady and firm. "He may not be the same as you are, as the people you grew up with, anymore. I don't think you did anything wrong, but be aware."

Hinata nodded, slowly. "I think... I sensed that." she murmured, looking down into her hands, folded around her own cup.

"I think I can trust him, though."

"Trust yourself," Miya said. She tucked away the faint wisp of approval in her tone, but Hinata heard it. "And don't bother hurrying to get up, academy's closed. We're snowed in."

---------------------------------------

Had he lost his drive? Or his nerve? No...

He'd just had too much to drink. And now he was paying for it. He made it to the bathroom in time to lose his breakfast. He thought he'd ask the old woman.. no, one of the servant girls.. Or better yet, just check the medicine cabinets. He found aspirin, took two. _This is why I don't drink_, he thought, looking at his sad-sack reflection. He still looked young, too young. He looked soft. He ran one finger over the pathetic beginnings of stubble. After what, three days? This is what he had to show for it, a light dusting of fuzz? He scowled at himself. He was too soft-looking. His face was too much like his mother's. He couldn't figure out why he'd ended up looking this way, when Itachi had looked so much like their father. And it suddenly annoyed the hell out of him. He raised his fist...

..and caught himself. He put that hand on the side of the sink, breathing deeply. There was no point in breaking the mirror. It wouldn't solve anything. The old woman would just laugh at him as she picked the glass out of his fingers. And he'd have to apologize to Hinata. not that he didn't want to show respect.. but it would be humiliating.

He liked the sound of it. Her name. It felt like warmth, to him. Sunlight. Things that were uncomplicated, and comforting, and seemed like they could be counted on to survive.

But it didn't help his mood, much. He grimaced, his stomach heaving, as he searched the drawers for a razor. That was why he didn't drink _often, _anyway. Orochimaru and those other four, the ones who had come to collect him... They still annoyed him. He didn't like the taste of their sugar-sweet flattery, as if they expected him to be too stupid, or power-mad.. or insecure, and he wouldn't notice. Anyone would need a drink now and then, just to deal with people like that.

"Haven't got much to say, do you?" the old woman said as she came in to the bedroom. She still didn't knock. "Take off your shirt," she ordered, setting down her tray.

He could smell the disinfecting solutions of herbs she would use to clean the cut. So he stripped down obediently, wanting to get it over with. But he felt some small irrational sense of triumph when she clicked her teeth, examining his side. "And no manners, from what I can see." she said, snorting. "At least you heal fast." She took out most of the stitches.

She re-bandaged his ribs, and his feet, which were almost healed. "That's for your headache," she said, pointing to a mug of tea she'd placed on the bedside table, probably while she was cutting the thread out and he'd been too distracted to notice. "Your grandfather couldn't handle the liquor either, boy." she said, as she left. Her sandpaper laugh echoed from the hallway. "The stories _I _could tell you. Hah."

And he stared after her, caught between irritation and curiosity.

As she left, he thought that it probably wasn't worth getting angry about, exactly. She just wasn't the kind of older woman he liked, she was too blunt. He didn't like people who got in his face like that, even in passing. He got dressed, they'd left more clothes for him. This time, the long-sleeved shirt had their hooked cross sewn into the back. It was a strange symbol for him to wear, a sun disc. He didn't feel like himself, exactly, wearing white and light blue. But he was anxious to get out in the open air and train. He wanted to judge how much damage Orochimaru had done to his body. He needed to run, move, pound the hell out of something. After so many days of lying around, his muscles were twitchy and aching to be used.

There was deep snow outside. He appreciated it, it allowed him to examine his footwork- which was still quick and precise. It muffled the sounds of the village, which helped him not notice or remember things he didn't want to. And the servants mostly ignored him, or appeared to. Which he preferred.

He didn't notice when she came out to the yard as well. He just was resting, catching his breath with his hands braced against his knees, when he looked up and caught sight of her. She was doing body skills, simple calisthenics. But her form was very good, he noticed. She moved in a way that was different then anything else he'd seen before, and he'd seen many fighters. Even Sakura's form was sharp, all quick angles and cocked elbows. Hinata's.. he still found he wanted to pause, after thinking her name. Hinata's form was as smooth as water. It almost cast the illusion of being gentle, as if her hands wouldn't hurt if she struck him. But he knew it would, he saw the way she snapped her wrist at the last second, like a flicked raindrop. It would hurt a lot; it looked like she struck for small, concentrated spots.

He didn't plan to spar with her. It just happened. As one of her kunai went slightly wide, and he went to retrieve it for her. It had fallen closer to him. He found himself watching the fluid sway of her hips as she walked towards him.

He could look down his nose at almost everyone else, if he chose. But the Hyuga had been above the Uchiha. He wondered if she felt he wasn't good enough for her. And he had to admit that she probably wouldn't be wrong, if she did. He wondered if she wouldn't want him touching her at all, as he handed her the kunai, and as her hand briefly touched his.

Her hair was long, and dark. There was no sun, but he could see a faint shine to it, moving like ripples in water. He wondered if it would feel like silk, if he touched it. If she would allow him to gather it in his hand. He didn't ask her to spar. But as he turned back to his training, and they circled one another slowly in the yard, he found that they had fallen into the practice formations. And they were facing one another. He deflected her snapped kick, and she blocked his punch. She was a bit slower, just a hair under his speed. He didn't think she had his endurance. If they had been fighting seriously, he imagined that he could defeat her without too much trouble. But in the slow push and pull of sparring, she seemed to have an advantage. She could wear him down, he thought. It wasn't easy to counter her. He felt subliminal quivers through his arm every time he raised it to block off her strikes. Gentle fists, he thought. He watched those strange pale eyes, ghost eyes, that all the Hyuga had.

The old woman was waiting with hot drinks, when they stepped back in the house, dripping with melting snow.

"Since you both are desperate to catch your death," she said. She tossed a towel at him, which he caught, using the motion to tell her what he thought of her. But he saw that she looked at Hinata with affection.

And that was something even he didn't want to sneer at. Even if the old woman _was _a real bitch, and he wouldn't want to live with her.

As for Hinata...

...she eventually joined him again, after he'd gone to the roof to practice with his chakra.

He'd tested the beginnings of the fire, and the chidori. It didn't seem polite, somehow, to fully complete either one. Not when he was on the roof of her house. He didn't think his chakra was quite ready for it, he was tiring too fast. That meant that he was not ready to leave. He would have to stay here. He shrugged, lightly. It couldn't be helped, could it?

So. He would be here for a bit longer. He didn't mind the thought of spending time with her. She didn't press on his patience, like other people did. So, no, he was fine with her working in her room, while he was there.

Not that this was easy to explain to her, though.

She wanted to know if it would be all right with him. He didn't mind. He told her that it was her room. She suddenly fell into rigorous etiquette, telling him that it was his, she wouldn't want to disturb him. He told her again.. no, that would be fine. But she still insisted, and he tired of exchanging polite nothings with her. He eventually just pulled out her desk chair for her, and waited for her to sit down.

"Are you sure this is all right?" she said, after a moment.

"Yes." he told her. He tried to judge her expression. He'd gotten too used to being harsh with people, it was amazingly hard to _not _drive them away, even when he didn't really mean to. But she didn't seem to feel rebuffed. So he went back to the bed, and let her work in peace.

He had been surprised to see her, it was well towards noon. He had figured out that she was some sort of teacher, probably an academy instructor, since she didn't wear the green scroll vest of a jounin. He'd overheard some of her house staff discussing her, something about her students. He raised one eyebrow lightly, noting that you could learn a good deal in this house, if you had nothing better to do but hang around and listen.

And the servants here sure liked to talk. Mostly they liked to talk about him.

She was tending to the financial business of her house. She used an abacus, and tallied the figures the old fashioned way. He watched her pick up the ink stone and stamp her crest into the paper.

He could tolerate her company, even without alcohol. He listened to the intermittent click of the stone beads. And behind that, the steady mechanical tick of the small clock that sat by her bed. Clockwork? His had been electronic, digital. He hadn't owned anything that wasn't new. Everything that had been in his family's house, he'd left it there. Right where it lay. He wanted the house to be untouched. It formed a silent memorial, in his mind. And it was a small thing, these antique pieces that seemed to lie in every corner of her house. But he envied it.

He was reading a book one of those older servant girls had brought him from, he assumed, the house's library. It was an in-depth historical account of the point in her family history when the Uchiha clan had separated from the house. He hadn't asked for this particular book. They'd just given it to him, completely unprompted. It was interesting, though, at least. He didn't know very much about this part of his family's distant history. It had been a calm, cool-headed secession, which he approved of. It would have been pointless to exhaust the wealth of the house with a pitched battle. This way, the Uchiha founders had resources, and residual ties, both to form a strong foundation for their house. He felt proud to be a direct descendent, reading about them. And he wondered how many other remaining traces of his family were hidden in her house.

Did he mean to talk to her? No more then he meant, or planned to spar with her. These things simply happened. Mostly there was comfortable silence. And then he found himself asking her, directly, if _she _objected. Did she mind? Having him here?

"You're my guest," she said. She had turned partially in her chair. Her eyes studied him, and he felt the deceptively light touch of her gaze. He'd felt the atmosphere of the room, the change in energy, the moment she had walked in. "Of course you're welcome here." she said.

But this did not answer his question.

"You said you trusted me." he told her. He watched her carefully, her face, her movements. Six and a half years in Otokagure had taught him to be attentive to tonality and inflection. These things shaped chakra, there.. and they spoke for her in many ways. He could see that.

He saw her tilt her head, and her eyes narrow slightly. She was thinking, weighing her responsibilities.. he was certain of it. It was true that he didn't know her. But she didn't seem that hard to understand, to him. He imagined that he could guess the basic direction of her thoughts. But some part of him wanted to hear her say it, openly.

"Is it because of Naruto?" he asked. She had said _that _too. For Naruto. Everything for Naruto. Not that he had any right to be jealous.

"No." she replied. Her voice took on that deeper resonance of authority, just then. A shift in her gaze, as she closed her eyes, just for a moment, as if putting her thoughts in order. "I didn't know myself, for a while. I may still not know.. but.." she was looking down into the lines of inked figures on her accounting scroll. He saw her touch them, feel the raised ink with soft fingertips. "I think it's because I don't want to see people be alone. And I didn't want to see you die... And.." He waited for her, watching the thoughtful look on her face, her eyes half-hooded and looking at nothing, now. "I wanted to share with you. It's not pity, but.." her voice was softer yet, now, a thoughtful whisper. Her eyes were far away. He found himself holding very still, drinking in every sound and motion. "... I guess I wanted to help you feel a bit better." she said.

Which did not answer his question either.

He went back to his book, concealing the twinge of frustration he felt. He didn't know how to talk about these things. He didn't know how to ask her if she thought he was good enough for her, even though he didn't have a family or house worth anything anymore. He swallowed the sigh, too. He put his attention back in the distant past, and returned to the stories of his ancestors.

"Miya.." he heard her say. As he looked up, she met his eyes and said. "The one who's been taking care of you. She says that she doesn't think it's wrong, or foolish of me.. to have you here."

Which almost answered his question, he thought. He thought that maybe he could read between those lines.

"She just said that I should be aware, that's all." She picked up her pen and turned it over in her hand. But she didn't turn back around to her desk.

"I'm aware." she said, after a moment. "Of what you might be like."

Which made it impossible to tell how she felt. He found that he _was _getting frustrated now, and he said, before he could think better of it "Do you know what that means? Be aware?"

"Beware." she whispered.


	6. Fatalism

"Naruto-kun and Sakura-san love you." Hinata said to him, with quiet authority in her voice. "More then I think you know."

A perfect non-answer.

--------------------------------------------------

There was silence, mostly, after that.

Hinata thought that the feeling of that silence had changed. She wondered if she'd upset him. He'd fallen silent again. After a moment, she turned her head slightly. He was reading. There was a certain tension to his expression, quiet as he was. She was half-trying to be unobtrusive, but she felt herself leaning on the byakugan, slightly.

"Does it show you anything?" he said, all of the sudden, without looking up. There was a trace of irritation in his tone.

No, not irritation. Not exactly. Anger? Not that exactly either.

"Just your chakra." she said. And his body heat.

"I can't read your mind," he said, after a moment.

And she didn't know what to say, in response to that. She couldn't read his, either. She was trying to read him, his voice and his body language. But maybe she was reading him wrong. She did think she was attracted to him. She did think that she liked him. What could she do? She didn't know what could be done.

So she returned to her accounting work.

She couldn't think of a way to approach the subject with him. Maybe he didn't like her.. and probably, he didn't. He didn't seem to like anyone.

And a few minutes later, he opened the shutters to the garden and climbed out into the snow. He left without a word.

Alone, Hinata let her breath out slowly, trying to release this tension.

--------------------------

It was too fucking cold out. His bare toes almost froze to the roof. He couldn't concentrate, he had to circulate chakra just to keep his extremities from freezing. It forced him back inside.

He wouldn't make her reject him to his face. But maybe, he should. Maybe he needed to hear it. And maybe it would force him out the door faster, as if he couldn't afford to stay here.

Not that he was ready. His chakra was still too low to be comfortable. And he remembered... that whenever he was anywhere, for any length of time, he ended up having to find places of his own where he could be alone with his thoughts. People would start to bother him, and he'd have to get away from their eyes and their voices. Not that she was bothering him...

It was this feeling, too. This is the way he'd felt forever. Homesick. Wanting to go home. The way he'd felt after a long day at school, or in training. But there was no home to return to.

_Sakura. _she'd said. _Naruto._

He could have gone a lot longer without hearing those names again. He could have spent a lot more time without having to think about this.

--------------------------------

Was it appropriate? At all? No, of course it wasn't. She'd found a man in the woods. A stranger. _She'd found a strange man in the woods. _She'd never known him, or spoken to him. She knew him by name only.

And by reputation.

She brought him home, she gave him space to heal. She found herself, and maybe she should have expected this, thinking about him. Fantasizing. She passed one hand over her cheeks, feeling the heat in them. It was embarrassing, and it was completely out of line. Who would feel this way? Maybe a lot of girls would, he really was attractive. He wasn't that hard to talk to, or to be around, if you didn't push him. But she didn't think he'd feel the same. Why would he? He was a runaway ninja. He'd refused- completely _refused- _to return, even when Naruto chased him. He didn't want to be here. There was something else he was doing. Something that he couldn't do here. Or maybe he just resented it that much, the village.. and the people in it.

She felt ashamed for her family. Weren't the Uchiha distant relations? Very distant, now. The blood was so different that their eyes had changed. She wandered to the kitchen for a snack. She asked Miya when she found her.. why hadn't they taken him in, when he was a young child, all alone?

"It's complicated." Miya said.

She was too shy to talk to boys. She was too shy, she _had _been too shy to say anything to Naruto for years. That was no exaggeration. _Years. _She didn't feel like eating anything. And Miya was busy with the apprentices, she didn't have time to chat. Hinata didn't want to go back to her room, even though he was probably still not there. She didn't know what to say to him. She found herself wandering the house.

It was familiar. And it was home. Even what her father had said to Kurenai-sensei that Hinata was worthless, Kurenai could do with her whatever she wanted, because to him, her life was nothing...

..even then. This house. These rooms, this familiarity. It had comforted her. She'd missed it terribly, when she followed Kurenai out the gate.

And Naruto-kun had married Sakura-san...

It was strange.. stupid, that she could still cry over this. She wiped her eyes with her fingers. It was just a little sting of tears. She wanted to be beyond this, stronger. She couldn't be this weak. Maybe her softness was not completely useless, but this was not it's place.

Naruto had married Sakura. She was happy for them. She was wandering through her house, through the tatami rooms, where she would sit with her father and Neji to discuss the house's business. And sometimes her aunts and uncles, her grandparents, sometimes all of these people would be there, too. She couldn't feel too sorry for herself when she was so protected, with so many people around her.

And maybe... she would be strong enough to make something of herself. She would become a jounin. She would become the administrator of the Hyuga clan. She would meet someone else. She would have to, as the heir, it would be her duty to marry. She would have to continue the line. She found herself running her fingers restlessly over the rice paper walls. She stepped closer, and gently rested her cheek against the wooden crossbars. The future would be bright, if only because it meant that she could change more and more. She could reach higher. She would meet someone else...

She closed her eyes.

And then, she wouldn't feel so strange around Sakura-san...

..and Naruto-kun.

She didn't think Sasuke liked her, anyway. She'd imagined that connection. She'd imagined the way they'd moved together out in the training garden, as if they could feel one another's unconscious thoughts. But it was her imagination, what was there to this, other then the fact that he had accepted sake and tea from her? That he hadn't slapped the teacup out of her hand? He hadn't even looked up for at least half of those times. _He'd stood and waited and then pushed her chair in for her. _But his expression was still too opaque, she couldn't read those eyes of his.

And it didn't mean anything. She only imagined that it did...

..because she was lonely. And she knew it. And because everyone asked her why she didn't have a boyfriend. Why she'd never had one.

She was shy. But that's not all there was to it. She knew... she _knew... _that she had hidden behind Naruto-kun. She'd used the idea of him to avoid talking to other boys. She knew this. Shino-kun told her to think, to examine herself. To find the parts she wanted to change. Change them.

"It will not be easy." he cautioned her.

So she wiped her eyes, and went back to work. The accounts had to be balanced. That was a clear and present reality. The house had to be run. Tomorrow's lesson plan had to be looked over, she wanted to think a bit more about how she was going to approach the material. As soon as the snowstorm ended and the academy opened again, she would go back to work. Life would continue in it's ordered routine. She paused, pen in hand, and she turned to look over her shoulder. Outside, in her little rock garden, the blizzard was howling in a world of white.

---------------------------------------

Sasuke was watching the power lines as they sagged under heavy wet snow.

Maybe with such flimsy lines of communication.. he shook his head. Maybe the lines got crossed. Maybe he didn't really understand her at all.

He was up in what he figured must be their attic. He'd scaled down from the roof and forced a window to get in. He'd chipped the wooden frame slightly in the process. This entire house.. this entire little pocket of warmth in the middle of a freezing blizzard... He curled his lip, slightly. It was too perfect. They kept everything so clean, and so well-tended. That army of serving staff... if that was the skeleton crew, he wouldn't like to be around when her full family returned. It was one thing to have the small cell of his brother, his parents and himself tucked into a quiet community of relatives. But she had a real genuine dynastic ninja clan, living and present, right now. He tucked his knees up under his chin, watching the snow fly through the damaged window. The Uchiha had been just a smaller, darker version of them. The Hyuga sun... he fingered the woven crest stitched into his shirt. His family had been a clan of workers, compared to this. Police, judges, lawmen. He sighed. He still wanted it. That life. To be a police captain, like his father had been.

But that would be difficult now that he was a criminal, would it?

He'd had to turn away from the desire to be part of something larger then himself. _Attachment to your name and attachment to your clan and attachment to the rules, _and Itachi had spoken, on and on, in some terrible kind of symmetrical rhythm. He could take his Otokagure atonal training now and read subtleties into Itachi's voice, make himself see all kinds of things that probably weren't there.

_Run away, run away, _Itachi had said. To go through life as Sasuke always had since, getting pissed off about five or six separate things before he even got his ass out of bed. To take fucking offense at everything everyone said, because he couldn't forgive them for anything. For having things he didn't, that he could never have again. For not realizing there was just no way back for him. They kept pulling at him. Reaching for him. Trying to save him.

Sakura had been fucking _twelve, _it was understandable. He'd been twelve, he'd had no idea how to deal with her. His mother wasn't around to teach him the right way to behave with girls. He only had the example of her and his father. And their relationship existed behind closed doors, even when they talked to one another. He'd never even seen them kiss. He'd never seen his father hug or show any particular affection to his mother. So how the hell was he supposed to know what to do?

And he didn't think Sakura would want him anymore, if she saw him now.

He still wasn't sure how he felt about her. She was bright and very pretty. She was a bit too loud for his taste. He wondered if it had been mostly about fighting with her friend. They quarreled over him, but as they were shouting his name back and forth, they never seemed to actually look at him, or notice him at all. It was all about what they thought he was. It was all about him being another version of Itachi- smaller, lesser and somehow disappointing, naturally. He didn't know how to tell Sakura that that this wasn't the way he really was, not inside. It was just the way he found to deal with the rest of the world. It was just him surviving. But he both enjoyed the attention and resented it. And worried about it. And sensed that the situation might get a bit out of control. And mostly just avoided it, if he could. Or ignored it. It wasn't that he disliked her.

He knew that she must have her own problems. But they seemed so small and easy, next to his. And to Naruto's... at least Naruto knew what it was like to be all alone. And he knew, also, that he lost his temper with her sometimes. And he didn't mean what he said. He knew that it hurt her, he just didn't know how to respond to her in any other way.

But, Naruto... Naruto was such a fucking _idiot, _following him.. refusing to give up, to just fucking _give up _on him. If he hadn't decided to abandon the mangekyo sharingan, Naruto would be dead now. Naruto had been out cold, lying at his feet! He couldn't believe the idiot.. would he be happy dying that way? For him? For nothing... it was just stupid. Yes, Naruto was a friend.. he and Sakura were his only friends. But it made no difference. And even if things had been different, and they could have just been normal friends... he thought he'd still have to break Naruto's stupid face now and then. Naruto had a real talent for getting on his nerves.

And neither of them seemed to understand that he was already dead, the world was already over. Nothing they could say or do would change that. He explained this to them. He told them, bluntly. He remembered being confronted with Sakura on the exit road of the village, already fighting his own weakness. Listening to her fan those flames, unable to just turn and _walk away _from her, because he didn't want to hurt her. No, it _hadn't _been meaningless. He liked her, he liked Naruto... most of the time. But he had to go. He _had _to kill his murderous piece of _shit_ of a brother. If he ever wanted any peace, if he ever wanted to end his own life and face his parents in the other world.. which he wasn't even sure he believed in. If he was ever to set his conscience to rest, he had to do this. He had to. He didn't want to hurt them. He wished they could just forget him, go on with their happy, unblighted lives. They couldn't save him. He didn't want to ruin _their _lives too, he felt bad enough.

So he ran the hell away. And that wasn't the only reason. He had to become harder and stronger. He had to get himself in deeper, that was the only way. He couldn't do it in Konoha, and in their arms. They were pulling him away from his entire plan of attack, and he could imagine another way, suddenly. He could see himself happy with them, forgetting. He had to go. He had to pull away from them. Not because it meant nothing, what they were doing. Because it was fucking _working._

He closed his eyes, tightly.

Naruto had screamed his name, his voice thick with tears. He'd never forget the sound of that.

But it was cold up in the attic, too. So he climbed back out, and crept back into Hinata's room. He saw that she was not there, and he was glad she was not, when he caught one loose pant leg on the latch as he climbed through her windows. Orochimaru's training had married his body so much to subtleties of chakra flow; it wavered through his balance. The chakra level was rising, but what he had was still damp and slow. He just wasn't healed.

And he was tired of reading. He was sure now that Orochimaru had abused the sharingan. He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

So he went down the hall, down polished wood stairs, past a charcoal brazier that was melting small cones of sandalwood incense. He could hear the wind through the walls. He found the kitchen, which was deserted. Except for the old woman, who was wiping down the countertops.

"You're really messed up, aren't you?" the old bitch said. He wasn't in the mood for this.

"Shut up, you old hag." he muttered.

"Watch your mouth," she replied, calmly. Her tone was almost amused. It was almost kind. She brought him tea, and sweets. Like he was a child.

But he was hungry. The seal was working hot and hard under his skin, healing him. So he ate.

"Why don't you tell me what the problem is." she said. She was drinking coffee. There were no other staff members in the kitchen, or the outer rooms, or ever the deep freeze locker he saw gleaming behind the cloth doorway divider. He looked. He examined the whole area, everywhere that was in earshot. He didn't lift his head or move his eyes, but he made damn sure to do it all the same.

"You know what the difference between you and her is?" she said.

He didn't say anything. He didn't even look up. He just continued eating mechanically.

"She helps herself." she said.

He fucking knew that. He knew it. He was tired of people telling him that he didn't want to be saved, that he _wanted _to destroy himself, that he didn't want any help and that he fucking..wasn't... he lost the train of thought. People- _annoying fucking people-_ telling him things he already knew. And they didn't understand, and they _couldn't _understand and they would _never _understand and he was tired of talking, because nothing was going to change ever and they didn't understand _that _either.

He could see that Hinata was leading a good life. She had a family, a safe home, a respectable job and she was dedicated to her training. He knew that, he'd spent the last fucking day and half lusting after that, and everything else about her. God_dammit. _

"No one's doing this to you except yourself." she said.

He bit back the scowl. He didn't look up. He continued eating. He swallowed.

The words burst out of him. "You," he snarled "don't fucking know me." He set his cup down hard and got up. The chair squealed back over the tiled floor.

He half-expected her to scold him for cursing at her. But there was only silence. He stared at the sticky patterns on his empty plate, standing. She was watching him over the rim of her coffee mug. She had small eyes that were just a bit too knowing for his taste.

"I know something about life." she said.

He thought for a second that she looked like someone who had a scrap of wisdom. But he looked away, and didn't want to talk to her at all. "Put the dishes in the sink." she said. And then that chance was gone too.

-----------------------------------

Sasuke had come back to her room. Hinata could tell that he probably didn't want to see her. She could feel him in there, that heavy chakra energy field, like traces of lightning tickling up and down her arms. The way the sky would feel, heavy, just before a thunderstorm. She knew he was there, even as she walked towards the room. She stopped, halfway down the hall.

It was too late, he'd heard her. She heard the slightest sound of his foot on the floor. She knew it was only because he was injured. If he had not been, she would not have heard him. She wouldn't have been able to tell that he'd risen from the bed. She saw that he was standing to avoid casting a shadow into the hallway. But he knew she was there. And he must have known that she would know he was there, as well.

Which meant it was unlikely that he was waiting by the doorway to ambush her. But she felt that she had to catch her breath before moving forward.

_But I'm not afraid. _she told herself. _This isn't fear. _It wasn't, it was just like being hyper-aware of his presence, of reacting so strongly to him. He was quiet. But he had such a chakra halo to him, she could _feel _what he meant, what he must be feeling... she almost didn't have to wait for him to speak at all.

But she was probably imagining that. She gathered herself up, smoothed her hair, straightened her jacket and the mesh shirt under it. She cleared her mind. She would pretend nothing was wrong. Because nothing was, was it? She didn't know, she couldn't begin to judge. She had no basis for judgment with him. But if she had any say in the matter, she would pretend that there was nothing wrong, that he was just tired, or what they'd said to one another hadn't meant what she'd felt it had, what they'd done together had essentially never happened. Things only suggested in her imagination didn't happen in any meaningful way at all.

But what she had, and what she knew was real... she would do what she could to make the best of that. That was how she had come to live.

She opened her eyes, and he was leaning on the doorframe, watching her.

She controlled her startle reaction. But she couldn't stop the little gasp that hissed out of her.

As she stood rooted to the spot, she found herself studying his face again. Exactly as she had before, as Miya bent over him with bloodied hands. She thought that he could look very arrogant, and very dismissive. But it didn't seem like his natural expression. It didn't seem to ring true with the other impressions she had of him. Maybe it was just a role he played? Maybe it worked for him. But as she looked, and he looked straight back, the electrical charge of the silence grew unbearable. She had to break it. She would say something meaningless and polite. She drew a breath to speak.

"Do you want to go for a walk?" he said.

It was hard to put her finger on it. He spoke very steadily, and with a sleek confidence that just seemed completely innate, like it was something he didn't have to think about at all. At another moment, this would have taken her breath away. But, caught off balance by the sudden question, she found herself frowning instead. "A walk?" she murmured, almost to herself. "Outside?"

He shrugged. But there was no cold indifference in the gesture. He was watching her too closely.

She was aware, again, of the press of her heartbeat. She wet her lips slightly. She needed that little half-second, before she could speak again. "But it's so cold outside." she said. Her hair was slithering over her shoulders, against her cheek. She tucked it back. His gaze had that heavy electrical quality, too.

"We could use chakra." he said.

She breathed, and got herself pulled together again. Walking silently as she could, she slipped past him in the doorway. She felt the long edge of her jacket whisper over his arm. She saw him move slightly to let her pass. But in doing so, he actually angled to move closer to her. It was a strange, subtle move. It took her a second to register it. And that was several steps later, she was across the room. She was at the window, gently pressing her hand to the wooden cross-frame.

She felt his eyes on her. On the back of her neck. A little hinting tingle.

She thought that if she were any other girl, if she were _anything _like the others girls she'd known, the ones who were so beautiful and confident and ready for this sort of thing.. she'd just be forthright. She'd turn and face him. She'd have some way of judging if these signals she felt.. that she _thought _she felt.. were real. She nibbled at her lip slightly. It was still freezing outside, she could feel the cold creeping through the wood. And the wind was howling.

She head him shift position. The energy changed. He must have looked away.

She leaned against the window, very slightly. The glass was so cold that it bit at her skin. She didn't know. She could swear that she'd hurt him, just then. That he'd been waiting for an answer, and he'd taken her scatterbrained distraction for an unspoken rejection. She turned, just slightly, to look over her shoulder.

He was still standing by the door. This time, he'd leaned against the wall beside it, his arms loosely crossed over his waist. Neji's shirt fit him in a way that emphasized the sleek knots of muscle.

He looked both so much older, and so much younger then eighteen. Something in his body, crisscrosses of scar tissue on the pale forearms she could see, for the former. Something in the eyes, the finely sculpted structure of his jaw, for the latter.

And he'd done it again, caught her staring at him, lost in thought. Debating with herself, unable to trust herself. She closed her eyes. She bowed her head slightly.

She wanted to walk towards him, put her arms around him. The sleeves of her woven jacket had picked up the heat from the tatami room's wall. The fabric was warm, against her arms. She loved the feeling of putting on warm, soft clothes. She wanted to wrap him up in that feeling, make him feel better. She could swear that she sensed that he wanted that. He wanted her to touch him, to comfort him.

But until she could be sure...

"All right," she said, softly. "The east garden is sheltered. It won't be so cold there."

Miya was not around to nag them about wearing proper clothes. Hinata lead him downstairs, and she felt him following her, his eyes on her. She had to admit that while it was an intense feeling, it wasn't something that felt disturbing, or bad. She didn't feel like he was glaring at her or sneering. He was just watching. Like he was simply aware of her, and interested in her, and paying close attention. It was almost something that felt nice.

And a bit dangerous, because she still wasn't sure where he stood.

She took him to the large closet near the front entrance to the main house. She found a warm fur-lined coat of Neji's... it was fortunate that he and Neji were more or less the same size. She found her own quilted down jacket, and zipped it up over her mesh shirt. She thought that Miya would object to the sandals, but she had worn them in worse weather. They'd use chakra to keep their feet warm. And they'd probably keep moving. And as she slid the heavy iron bar locks from the east gate, she thought distantly that Sasuke really did look best in black. The fur-edged collar was a subtly different shade of black, next to his hair. She turned. She got the door open. And they walked, in the relative stillness of the solarium beyond.

The wind couldn't find a way around the high sheltering wall of the house. But it was still cold. She'd been a step ahead of him, but he moved so that he'd fallen in step with her, and they walked side by side. The koi ponds were still and black. The fish were like gold coins drifting under the water. She walked with him through the rock gardens, past the little stone spirit houses and their thick caps of snow. The wind could not reach here, but the snow still came down. Sasuke carried the lacquered umbrella, keeping it off their heads. And it meant that she had to walk fairly close to him. She could feel his body heat. She wanted to put her hand on his arm, it seemed like everything else in their current position suggested it. But she held back...

Though he didn't say so directly, she had the feeling that the subject of Naruto, or Sakura, or almost anything involving his life in this village was something that he would prefer not to be reminded of. She watched him, turning her head now and then to glance at him. And a few times, he turned his head, that slow elegant motion, to look back.

He was sparing with words. He used them directly, and efficiently, like precise weapons. She'd heard him speak that way several times now.

But, she didn't think that he was really, truly cold. He was quiet. But he did seem to explain what he was thinking, mostly, if you asked. And if you listened, he would tell you. He seemed to only get annoyed with people who didn't understand the first time, and pressed him further. He seemed to feel that he shouldn't have to repeat himself.

Hinata thought that she was not exactly like this herself, she wanted others to understand her. She didn't mind if she had to tell them a few times, she wanted to be close to the people she liked, and who were kind to her. She felt a slow rush of nostalgia for her own team, for Shino and Kiba. They were so different then Sasuke was. They were normal, somehow. They acted like normal people. She just didn't know Sasuke well enough, yet. Maybe she'd never know him well. He'd leave in a few days. She knew this was a hard fact. She'd had years to slowly get to know Shino and Kiba. And while maybe Sasuke seemed a bit like Shino on the surface, she could tell that he didn't have Shino's inner calm. Shino would never have that faint threatening twinge of energy that Sasuke had, either. They were just so different.. _he _was just so different. Maybe Miya really had been right, maybe the massacre of his family really had turned him into someone who only looked like he wasn't a dangerous stranger.

But she could swear.. that all of that was misdirection. She could swear that she could trust him. She just didn't have a reason to believe it, yet.

"I think that you're probably not a bad person." she said, without meaning to. Her voice was distant and thoughtful, she hadn't really meant to speak her thoughts that way. But having done it, she didn't feel that she had done anything wrong. And she felt his energy shift, again, so slightly. The quality of the silence changed. She heard the heavy fabric of his coat rustle, too, as he moved...

...closer to her, a few millimeters only. But he was only shifting the umbrella to his other hand. It took her a second to realize that. And before she could, he was gathering his arm gently around her shoulders. She felt the light touch of his hand on her back. She was holding her breath, waiting. That too, took a moment to realize.

They were at the far end of the garden now, they'd walked many minutes in silence. They were in the cherry grove, now, and the bare trees reached up all around them.

"Over here," he said, almost as an afterthought. He lead her to one of the stone benches, and then swept the snow off with the collapsed umbrella, so they could sit down. He didn't remove his arm. She thought that he actually moved it slightly, as if he were gently touching her hair, where it spilled over her back. She drew a breath, and spoke, finally.

"I think that I could have liked you, if there was more time." she said.

She turned her head to look at him, to see if she had offended him. "I think I do like you." she said, again.

That unspoken look, the question _why? _"I guess it's just a feeling." she said, watching his eyes, and the way he looked against the somber wintry colors of the frozen garden.

He looked away, and after a moment, he bowed his head slightly, and closed his eyes. He seemed to be thinking. She waited, she had the patience to allow him to speak, in his own time. And in whatever way he wanted.

"I never noticed you before." he said, finally.

"Well..." she murmured, a bit embarrassed to admit this. "I'm shy, so most people don't notice me at all." She looked up, into the bare cherry branches. The snow was collecting on them in lines and in the shallow pockets where they forked. Spring was far off, this cold weather would continue. She thought that this was the proper season to meet someone like him. He seemed to belong in harsh climates, and they framed the high contrast of his dark hair and eyes, against the slightly unhealthy pallor of his skin. She imagined that he must have had a bit more color to him, once. She could imagine him seeing healthier days, when he'd have gotten more sun. And maybe more love. Naruto and Sakura loved him, they loved him so much. But he didn't seem to feel it.

"I wasn't looking." he said. "So I didn't see you." She felt him gather that hand to her shoulder now, running his fingers slightly through her hair as he did so. She held very still, concentrating absolutely on that one thing.

"I think I like you," she whispered.

He raised his other arm. The motion was slow, seemingly as slow and gentle as the falling snowflakes. He gathered his arms around her, and pulled her a bit closer. She closed her eyes, imagining she could feel his heartbeat, somehow, through the layers of heavy cloth that lay against her cheek. She felt the faint touch of his lips against the side of her forehead. He was warm, and alive; and for at least this moment, he wasn't gone or in danger. He was here. She'd spent so much time thinking of him as nothing more then something Naruto wanted. She hadn't thought of him at all. She'd never considered what he might be like, at all.

She raised her head slightly. She touched his cheek, then his lips with one finger. She could see his eyes change slightly as she did. Not soften exactly, he had no softness in him. But she found that she didn't find him intimidating. She still felt that she couldn't be sure of what she thought she saw, when she watched his eyes like this. But it seemed that he looked at her kindly. And he smiled, too, slightly. He even pulled her closer, as she moved to touch his lips with hers. He ran one slow hand through her hair, pressing it finally to the back of her neck.

She paused to breathe, pulling back slightly. She thought briefly that it was a good thing Hanabi was not home. No part of the house would have been safe from her. She could imagine Hanabi bursting from the snowbank. _Haha! Oneesan and Meanie, sitting in a tree! _It must have shown on her face, that mix of disapproval and love she felt for her sister.

"I don't know very much about this," he said. She was close enough to feel the whisper of heat as he exhaled. And she felt suddenly alive with warmth, resting in his arms. She thought he must have been able to feel her heartbeat, it was almost deafening to her. She had to force herself to think straight, and to behave responsibly. She found herself distracted from that again, considering what almost sounded like affection, in his voice.

And the look in his eyes said that he was asking her if this was acceptable to her.

She forced herself to think, to answer the question properly. And she looked down, her eyes wandering over the longish strands of dark hair that fell over the fur edging around his neck. "I don't either." she admitted. "I've never even had a boyfriend."

"You're a kunochi." he whispered. His hands tightened on her, slightly. He was almost breathing hard.

She looked up past the dark fringe of his hair and into the snow-whitened sky. It was cut by the bare branches that crossed over them. "It's not the same." she said. "I'm not trying to kill you."

A whisper of a chuckle. It was the first time she had heard him laugh.

"We'll manage." he breathed. She was close enough, her cheek pressed to his, to feel the faint hum of his vocal cords as he said it. "If you want to, then I'm willing."


	7. Tradition

_If you want me._

That was what he'd really said to her. The words he used were a bit different. But that was what he had said.

And now, as snow fell all around them, Sasuke was trying to explain to Hinata about Orochimaru. It was something he should disclose to a prospective partner. Doing so felt clinical, and made him feel slightly sick, but it was something she had to be warned of. He wanted her to make a clear, informed decision. He told her that he was involved with some very dangerous people. He said that he was directly complicit in what they were doing. And, drawing breath, he told her that while most of it had been consensual, the actual sex part- if you could call something so brief, businesslike and perfunctory the same- was always exploitive and what came after was usually violent. And that they usually didn't survive. He told her that he didn't like it, but he had to play the game. For now.

He told her he was certain that this was not how his mother would want him to treat women. And then, that he had little experience with actually pleasing, or making a woman happy. He told her he'd try, but she should be warned that he wasn't sure he'd be very good at it.

He left the fact that he'd never had much of a successful emotional connection with anyone unsaid. He was sure it was apparent. The snow continued to fall, silently. He was stroking it out of her hair. A few flakes clung to her cheeks, and he nudged them away with his fingertips. Daylight was fading, the snow was falling from an increasingly dark sky. But he felt more comfortable with the cold, heavy silence that gathered all around them, as the high winds whipped snow against the walls of the house that rose on all sides. They were only in a small pocket of sheltered calm in a raging storm. The temperature was dropping as night fell. But they had enough chakra between them to transfer heat from warm hand to hand. And something about it, about her, made him feel secure enough to tell her these things, embarrassing as it was.

"I don't meet many people that I like." he said finally. Unnecessarily, he thought. Her silky hair was pooled against his neck, and it lay over his bare hand. It was precisely cut in straight lengths, like soft ribbons of satin. Her breasts swelled against his arm, and she smelled of flowers, just a hint of perfume. It was dizzying. And his body wasn't cooperating, he'd have to give it a good hard spanking later. But he knew how to control himself, Orochimaru hadn't broken him of that bare shred of decency. So he lay his cheek gently against hers and waited for her to decide.

She said that none of that changed the fact that she liked him.

He thought that she was far too compassionate for her own good. But he appreciated her kindness, and the fact that she seemed to be a sensible girl who didn't make decisions hastily. He mistrusted people who did.

Hinata had listened to him quietly and calmly, her head resting on his shoulder, while he clumsily tried to make her feel comfortable. She had touched him once or twice, gently running her fingers over his cheek. She seemed to sense that he found this difficult to talk about. She told him- with far more grace then he managed, he thought- that she knew a little bit about how to be close to people, that she was close to her teammates, and to her friends. And that she thought she and her cousin Neji, and her father would someday be closer as well; and that she was working towards this. She said she had little sexual experience, which he didn't think would be a problem, given her training.

They were discussing terms. Maybe it should have seemed odd and impersonal. But after daily life with a theatrical leech like Orochimaru, Sasuke thought that nothing would ever seem odd again. She said that her father would return in three days. Sasuke, of course, would have to be gone from the house by then. She said that while she thought she would miss him, and she was sorry that she wouldn't have more time to spend with him, she was aware that he probably needed to get back to whatever he was doing. She said that she could tell it was important to him. And her small warm unscarred hand was wrapped around his as she said that. The late winter snow was falling as the light died, and her pale skin and eyes took on a distant, ghostly beauty, he thought. Her voice was so soft, it was almost supernatural, the way it affected him, the way she seduced him with softness, grace and compassion. It was everything he wasn't. It seemed to come so naturally to her. And it felt like more kindness then he deserved.

But he knew he couldn't lose himself in recriminations. There was simply no time.

So they discussed terms of agreement. They would have to decide quickly what they wanted from this small patch of time they had together. They would have to then act, quickly, seize the moment. It would be over soon enough, like a ninja's life in general for that matter, and they didn't have time for a slow, dignified relationship. They didn't have time to try to fall in love, properly. She said that she was not the sort of person who fell in love quickly. And he knew he was not either. If they'd had time, if they could have held to one another, tried to reach one another.. if they could have planned for love and worked to achieve it. They agreed that if this had been the case, then it probably could have happened.

So he told her that if she wanted to, if she could make room for this in her own life and ideals, then he would enjoy doing these things with her. He was sure that he liked her as well. Something about this, and the brief time he would spend with her, felt like it could fit into the rest of his life, and coexist peacefully with it. No matter how dark he'd become, how low he'd dragged himself, pursuing Itachi.. no matter how much further he would have to go. He did not think this would stop that, or change that in any way. He did not think it would hold him back. And he didn't think he would regret it.

And she didn't seem to have noticed that he wasn't good enough for her, which was a plus.

He knew, though, that he'd have to behave himself. He'd have to take a very, very firm hand with himself. Because he knew he'd done very cruel things to people he cared about before. He remembered, in particular.. Naruto at the Valley of the End. He'd wanted Naruto to chase him, find him, pull him back, hit him again- _harder, dammit! You useless fuck! Naruto!- _make him stay. Force him to stay. Force things to be different, beat the sense into him, like Naruto screamed he would.

And Sasuke could barely hear him over the roar of the waterfall.

And in the end, after he'd laid Naruto out, finally, nothing had changed. Because nothing was ever _going _to change. The past was fixed.

And in the meantime, he made people prove it to him. He couldn't believe them, even when they did... when they went as far as they could go, as he pushed them to their absolute limits, making them _prove_ it, _show _him that they wanted him. That they needed him. That he just had to stay, they would do anything, they would promise anything, that they loved him so much, they'd do _anything. _And he just stood there wondering what the hell they were talking about.

He didn't believe it. Even when they said it. It was hard for him to believe.

But he imagined it, anyway. The way she would look, her soft face, and her gentle eyes. She could see right through him. He imagined the way it would sound, the phrasing and tonality. _I want you. _she'd say. I want _you._

And she'd all but said it.

He wasn't sure why, but it didn't seem wise to argue the point with her.

And there were more snowflakes caught in her eyelashes now. They were falling on his hands, he felt them sticking to his cheeks, and had to blink them from his eyes. She was watching him, just as intently. Her lips were slightly parted. She didn't push him away when he kissed her. She didn't seem to want to be anywhere but here, with him. He didn't hear _Itachi _in the breaths between her words, there was no _Itachi _there at all, there was nothing about how she liked him because he was like Itachi, he must be so shit-hot great because he reminded her of Itachi and maybe, if he gave up his entire life and everything he had to give, he could become a bit more like Itachi and maybe be something worth killing. Or seeing. Or noticing as his own person, rather then an eternal counterpoint to someone else like, say, _Itachi._

He exhaled, hard, and felt her shift in his arms. Her warm fingers brushed his cheek. He looked down, into the glittering cut facets of her byakugan's sighting lines. The concern in her eyes... He could barely even met them. It was too much. Too much sympathy. He closed his eyes and pulled her closer, as if this would convince her he was all right.

He had to keep himself in line. He couldn't let his usual way of feeling bleed into this, he'd just get angry over things that had nothing to do with her, or he'd take something she said the wrong way, and then he'd say something he shouldn't... he could see that it wouldn't take much to drive her away, a few harsh words would do it. They'd found a way to talk again, not that he deserved any credit for that. He'd been sulking upstairs, feeling sorry for himself. She'd had to come and find _him. _ He'd done it again.. he really wasn't very good at this being with people thing at all.

But at the moment, she was forgiving him for walking out on her, ignoring her, being rude to her, refusing to look at her, and- though maybe she didn't know about this one- cursing at her staff. She was giving him far too much credit. But she took his breath away, even if he didn't yet really know her, even if her father would probably have him killed on the spot if he ever got wind of this. He'd made up his mind that he did like her. So he kept his mouth shut and tried not to ruin it.

--------------------------------------------------------

So, it was done. She liked him. He liked her. Hinata told him that they would now have to decide what they wanted. She found herself guiding this negotiation process. Sasuke said that he didn't understand people very well, so he'd trust her judgment. He said that they didn't have very much time, so making a clear decision and planning for it made sense to him. She pulled him down gently and kissed him. It was chaste compared to the wild tales she heard from Sakura and Ino, but she shivered at the touch of his lips. It was crazy, she thought, really, the way she responded so much to him.

But after so much talking, it was clear to Hinata that Sasuke needed some time by himself. She understood that. She loved her students, but after eight hours of their loud voices and constant energy, she needed some time to catch her breath and hear her herself think again. So she made up an excuse about having to grade papers. She left him alone for a while. This was all happening very fast, she needed a moment herself.

And also there was something that she needed to know. Something that she should find out now, before she went any further.

"It's complicated." Miya had said, when Hinata had asked.

The snow had begun to sharpen into freezing rain. When Hinata went downstairs to find her school briefcase, Miya was supervising evening cleaning on the main floor. The scent of lemon oil filled the hallway. "In the front closet." she said, when Hinata stopped to ask. "Where's Mr. Sunshine? On the roof again?"

"I don't know." Hinata admitted. She'd left him alone, she didn't know where he'd taken himself off to think. That was the point.

The old cook turned from a group of servants polishing the wood floor. "I'd go find him, dear. He's not going to want to be outside. There's an ice storm coming." Hinata nodded and promised she'd go look for Sasuke. Miya harrumphed a bit about young men and their recklessness. She said that Hinata had a letter waiting. The courier-nins had come through the gathering storm.

Hinata went off to the front hall to collect her bag, and saw that the letter was just a message from the academy. They were reopening tomorrow, they were planning on taking advantage of the storm to do extreme weather survival training. Hinata tucked this away in the back of her mind for later, and swiftly walked back through the polished, slightly damp halls to find Miya again. She took the old cook aside, asking her a bit uneasily, could Miya spare a moment..?

"Dear, I would need to spare several hours." Miya said, after Hinata had explained. They had stepped into the far back of the house, the greenhouse where the gardeners would grow flowers in the spring. At the moment it was silent, and a bit damp with the smell of peat moss and treated water. There were a few luridly green seedlings in clay pots glowing under a bright ultraviolet light. And this hard light cast everything in the room in sharp tones, it made mockingly large dark shadows from the most innocuous objects. It was cold, and it was a bit creepy, and Hinata thought it was appropriate.

"Then I just need to know a little bit," she said, trying not too sound too desperate. "I know father will never tell me. And I need to know... I _need _to know." She had crossed her arms tightly around herself. She leaned against the brickface that made up one wall, and the rough surface of stone and concrete tore at the heavy fabric of her jacket. Somewhere in the dark masses of empty, sandy pots and green plastic hoses, water was steadily dripping. But Hinata thought that she felt more cold then apprehensive. She was the heir, she had been having this stern little conversation with herself several times now over the past few days. She turned so that she could meet Miya's eyes, look a little more like she could handle this. "I'm ready for whatever answer I hear." she said, and her voice seemed steady.

Sasuke had been a child when his family was killed. He had been alone. No one had stepped forward to help him. Hinata knew as much, she had seen Sakura and Naruto discuss him before. And she knew that the Hyuga could have taken Sasuke in. But they had not.

"I want to know why we didn't." she said. "What happened?"

Miya pulled a wooden crate away from the wall and sat down heavily. Hinata watched as the old cook prepared her thoughts, waiting.

"If you want the short version, dear, then it was politics." she said, looking into the middle distance.

Miya told her that there had been bad blood between her father and Sasuke's. Sasuke's father had been threatening to prosecute Hinata's father for conspiracy, claiming that he had evidence of a secret plot - "and it was for land-sharing and merged banking procedures between the Hyuga main house and two other powerful houses, dear, it wasn't as if it was for a coop," Miya said. Sasuke's father had demanded that Hinata's father turn the Hyuga's financial records over to the police squad. Hinata's father thought that this was harassment and that Sasuke's father was just upset because of some convoluted insult that Hinata's father had allegedly made towards the Uchiha clan. Sasuke's father replied that his father had known that Hinata's grandfather was a criminal, and that he knew the son was one as well. Hinata's father said he would go to the Hokage, Sasuke's father said that he would involve ANBU, and there were a lot of threatening letters sent back and forth, a lot of dividing of battle lines in the other houses, a lot of whispers that went through the village, and finally the matter had been dropped. But Hinata's father had never forgiven Sasuke's, and Miya said that Hinata's father had refused to have Sasuke in the main house for that reason.

But there was also the fact that Sasuke was not of direct Hyuga blood anymore. His distant common ancestry couldn't make up for this, not in an advanced bloodline as precisely tended as the Hyuga. "A lot of the old guard, you have to understand dear, don't feel the Uchiha are pure-blooded anymore." Miya said, her voice taking on an old note of resignation. "And, also, there's always resentment against the police, so even those houses who were not involved, or who do not protect their bloodlines..." she shrugged, slowly. And shook her head.

There was talk that Sasuke might have joined the branch house, then, but Miya said that Neji's father had absolutely forbidden it, refusing to be pushed around by the main house for something as useless as a low-blooded orphan who was no one important enough to care about. The elders of the branch house suspected that it was a ploy to weaken them in the eyes of Konoha's other powerful houses, to humiliate them further by forcing them to accept a child who wasn't even of their own Hyuga blood, when they themselves were not considered important enough to join the main house. Miya sighed, rubbing one eye tiredly with a gnarled finger. "There's more." she said.

The village at large didn't know what to think of the massacre, it had come out of nowhere, With so many dead, so much blood and death and misfortune clinging to Sasuke, no one wanted to bring that evil omen down upon their own house. Sasuke was marked. There were whispers that he had been somehow involved, that he had seen the murderer. And the murderer had done something to him. Miya said that while no one said it openly, many people expected that Sasuke would inevitably grow up to repeat what had been done. "And no one wanted to see the same thing happen in their house, of course." Miya said, as she leaned one hand against a battered wooden worktable to help pull herself to her feet. "So.. in the end, nothing was done. It was a long time ago, dear. You'd be wise to not mention this to your father."

Hinata nodded. She thanked the old cook. She went back upstairs. She picked up her red marking pen. She kept her hands moving, and her mind scanning the messy handwriting of her students, trying to focus on the variables of the assignment and not think of anything else. She ran out of papers to mark and went downstairs to help Kimiko with the dishes. She went and found her spare kunai pouch and sharpened every single one. She knew that if she stopped, she'd start crying, she could feel an insistent lump of tears pressing up in her throat. And she didn't know how she could explain her swollen eyes to Sasuke. She didn't know how she could explain any of this.

She thought that she might call Shino, but she knew she would start crying for certain. And she couldn't discuss the affairs of her house with him, or with anyone outside her family's circle.

But. She knew that she had agreed to this. She'd agreed to change, she'd agreed to accept the dark places that she may come to as a result. She would have to be strong, and realize that in the real world, sometimes no one particularly cared what happened to one small child, especially if he wasn't someone they had any use for. This made her stomach turn, but she knew that this was the way the world worked, and that it was her soft parts that objected. She knew that she might someday have to protect her family from impurity this way. She knew that she might be someday sent on missions to kill or orphan children herself. She had to accept it. She knew that sometimes bad things happened. In fact, they happened every single day, somewhere. Sometimes they happened to small children.

The villagers had unconsciously suspected that Sasuke was a murderer, that having been stained with a murderer's blood that he was now one and the same. Hinata had stood at the window of her classroom and quietly thought this as well. She was no better. It was easy, simple, to just make that split-second decision. To just assume that he was a dangerous person. She'd done it. She hadn't even thought twice about it. She'd thought that she had the moral high ground, automatically. Why was that? Why? Because she was a decent girl from a decent family and he was an orphaned, infamous runaway who reeked of blood.

She was walking, moving from room to room, steadily. She passed servants extinguishing lanterns, sweeping flagstones, polishing glass and wood, but she barely saw them, she couldn't remember if they had said hello or not, she just knew that she didn't feel right being at her desk, or being in this house. Not when she knew what her father had done. She wanted to go somewhere else, maybe just for a while, maybe just until she could catch her breath. Maybe she could call Sakura, ask if she could talk for a while. She could say that she had some questions about her father's heart problems, and just wanted to chat. Sakura-san would know it was a lie, but would talk to her anyway. Hinata stalked up into the dark west wing, down it's long paper hallways, and into her grandfather's study. She saw the foggy, strangely half-lit darkness that the whirling snow and ice created outside, the windows were a paler shade of shadow black then the walls as she walked into the silent, dark room. There were long fingers of ice creeping up from the bottom of the glass. She thought that she could handle this, she could accept this. She just had to pace herself, allow herself her own space to exhale, to release this tension and furious energy. She switched on the paper lanterns hung over the desk and picked up the phone.

But the line was dead. The ice storm had descended.

---------------------------------------------------

Sasuke was training. Thinking. Working as hard as he could, in rhythm, just like this... just like this, he thought, as he moved through a defensive pattern... it cleared his head. He could decide wisely. He had to weigh his priorities. And he had to tame this sudden sense of dread that had come out of nowhere. He felt a shudder of weakness waver up from one of his feet, a strained tendon from training too soon after the injury. He pushed through the motion anyway, pushing through the pain. You had to get used to fighting through injuries. And a little pain could be a good thing, a powerful motivator...

He circled the training yard, moving through darkness and dampening snow, winds that were starting to pitch and shake the heavy bare oak trees. He could hear their trunks groaning as they swayed, and the wind whipped him across the face, clawing at his hair. He couldn't see the footprints he and Hinata had made earlier in the day. They had snowed in. And now, as he moved, his would wipe away almost instantly, as if he had never been there at all. As if he wasn't there right now.

He thought it might be that he wasn't used to having this kind of interest in anyone. He'd found Sakura pretty in an incidental way, and some of Orochimaru's victims would stick in his mind afterwards, in snapshot memories of soft skin or hair, the heat of their bodies. But he wasn't like other people. He'd closed himself off from this. He wasn't going to have friends. He wasn't going to have lovers. He wasn't ever going to have a wife of his own. He was going to kill Itachi and then Orochimaru was going to take him. And that was how things would be.

But he'd thought that it might not be a problem. He could compartmentalize. He could live this life for a few days, shed some tiny amount of light on parts of himself that Orochimaru had no use for. In truth, Sasuke had no practical use for them himself. But he did like Hinata. She was quiet, she didn't bother him. She seemed to understand him. She was beautiful, he thought, in a quiet, dignified way. Her face had a queenly serenity to it, but she was not truly stunning until you saw her move, heard her soft voice.. something about that sound... he moved, cutting through the wind, snapping the blows, the kicks against it's changing lines of force.. Something about it comforted him, he could listen to her for hours. He'd never actually wanted to hear anyone talk before. Most people just couldn't shut up fast enough for him.

He moved... he felt the strength, the perfect response of his body. He ran through the usual reasons for concern. He could be worried about being distracted from his mission. He could be worried because he really didn't know her well. It could just be his default suspicion of people, he never really liked anyone until they proved themselves to him. He got used to some people eventually, but... The wind slapped at him and spun him off balance. He corrected, cursing under his breath. His hair was soaked now, icy water dribbled into his eyes. But he was getting battered by torrents of sharp ice and freezing water, anyway, it was just one more drop among many. He closed his eyes. He missed his forehead protector in an irrational rush, he was too distracted, the thought had time to register before he could crush it down again. And his fingers were starting to turn white, he was bleeding chakra just to withstand the cold. So he went inside.

The old woman probed at his side in a sheltered area of veranda where he could drip melting ice on the stone floor without irritating her too much. She took the bandages off entirely. She ran her dry, wrinkled fingers over the remaining stitches. She said she'd drawn a bath for him, and after the wounds needed to be disinfected again. The rubbing alcohol was under the sink. She left him a warm towel and told him to leave his clothes there. She would have someone come along soon to take them to be dried.

So he folded his soaked, half-frozen pants and shirt, left them in a neat pile by the door to the house, and went where she had told him to go.

He sat in steaming water in a wooden tub far bigger and more luxurious then anything his parents could have afforded, watching the tiny medicinal leaves unfurl themselves as they floated across the surface. He idly pushed them back and forth with his foot, thinking. He did worry about his experience. He thought that Hinata could teach him what he didn't know. But he wondered if he'd have any ability in anything other then what he did for Orochimaru's pleasure, which was quick, furtive, mostly mechanical sex that had no particular meaning or use or reason- other then Orochimaru's momentary amusement. It didn't prepare him for this.

He tried the sharingan, thinking that if he had such clear memories of Orochimaru's bullshit power games, then he should at least try to memorize the one chance he'd have to do something better. He looked into the leaves, into the patterns they made of dry and wet green against the soft gold of the tub's polished wood bottom. He closed his eyes, waiting for the headache. But there was nothing, he could use it again.

So he let himself relax a bit. Nothing had changed.. but he could accept a small bit of warmth and affection, brief as it would be. And the briefness would protect him, it would inoculate him against his weaknesses. He lay back, leaning against the smooth wooden side of the tub, closing his eyes. The longest bits of his hair had gotten wet. Little rivers of hot water trickled down his cheeks and neck. He breathed, forcing his body to settle into even deeper states of calm. He exhaled steam, held another breath of it down for a long moment, and then relaxed, pushing his shoulder blades against the rippled grain of the wood.

It wasn't the morality of it, ninjas who might die at any time couldn't put on airs of propriety. They couldn't afford a structured sexual ethic. It wouldn't be so bad, or so unusual, if they were to just sleep together for fun, or for pleasure, or even for a mutual attraction. He'd never had much of a taste for this, though. The brief, bloody encounters with the Otokagure women did not count, those were like scratching an itch, getting something out of the way, so he could continue with the only thing that really mattered.

Even if she didn't want that, even if she only wanted to spend time with him... if she wanted to only walk by his side in silence, like he remembered his parents would, when they were in public together... Even if she only wanted his time, or his attention.. or whatever she wanted, he would give it to her. He'd let her decide. He wasn't good at being nice to people, he didn't trust his own judgment.

As for what he wanted...

It wasn't that he expected to have anything, anyway. He would never have a wife of his own. He would never have a family. He didn't think that, even if things had been different, he would have wanted this brief sort of affair. What would be the point of it? It would distract him, he wouldn't find it amusing or enjoyable enough to make up for the losses of time and effort. If the girl was worth having, he would be concerned about taking advantage of her. He wouldn't want that, it wouldn't sit well with him. And if she wasn't worth having, he wouldn't bother to spend the time at all.

But she was worth having, so he had to take what he could have. He had to seize the moment. He knew that moment would be over and gone faster then he could imagine.

-----------------------------------------

Hinata set the phone down slowly in it's cradle. The phone towers must have collapsed under the ice. Or maybe the lines had simply snapped. She sighed, she reached up for the beaded pull switch for the lanterns. She could go pester Miya again, but she knew Miya would be very busy, the storm windows on the outer walls of all four wings would have to fastened, the wooden shutters tied shut. She could feel the wind pushing and pulling on the thick wooden walls, as if even the sturdy monolith of her family's house could be moved, nudged, as if it wasn't as impervious as it looked.

She had to tell Sasuke something. She couldn't keep this from him. If he hated her family for it, her father, or her.. she wouldn't blame him. She wore this crest. She had to own it's deeds. She couldn't have done anything with him not knowing what had happened, or keeping it from him now that she did. Not in good conscience.

So she walked back down the darkened hall, empty ricepaper rooms on one side of her, the spaced circular windows of the wooden wall all embroidered with frost, picking up tiny glints of light from the main floor. The heat seeped up through the wood. She could feel the distant hum of the furnace with every step. Sasuke would have come in by now. She went to go find him.

But the anger didn't fade. It smoldered. She wished she could have been more surprised, that she would have been shocked that her father would do something like that. It just made her angrier to think that she had essentially done the same thing, just written off someone because they weren't part of her family. Because they didn't have a family, they were a runaway criminal. She didn't know what to do, she'd never handled anger well. It had just turned to a kind of numbing depression before, before she started to build her strength. But now it wouldn't go away and she didn't know what to do with it. She had to find Sasuke. She had to tell him. And she didn't know what she could do after that, she couldn't go anywhere. The storm was raging, she couldn't leave the house.

She found him in her bedroom. She wasn't surprised, he seemed to stake out little places that he liked and to return to them in predictable patterns. He was lying down on the bed, propping a book up against one raised knee. Hanabi's cat with the spiked fur was curled up on his stomach, swishing her plumed tail back and forth. Hinata could hear her purring, she was the friendliest cat in the house. Sasuke looked up when he heard her step through the door, a smile drifted over his face. He seemed so relaxed and almost happy that Hinata suddenly didn't want to say a word. She'd never seen him look that way. There was even a trace of color in his pale cheeks. Hinata attempted a smile in return, failed and said "I have something to show you." She let her hand slip off the doorframe, lamely.

"Are you all right?" he said, getting up slowly, nudging the cat out of his lap with one hand. He closed the book and set it down. There was a quiet look of concern in his eyes. She thought that his voice really wasn't that harsh, in fact it wasn't harsh at all, it was almost warm. She couldn't look him in the eye.

"No. I'm not." she said as steadily as she could, but the words quivered in her throat. She felt him silently approach her, then his warm arms pulling her close to him. She bit her lip, holding the tears down. "I just want to apologize." she said, weakly, clenching her jaw with the effort of keeping calm,. She felt him gathering her hair out of her eyes with one hand, lifting it over her shoulder. He asked her what was wrong. She heard his whispered voice, the note of concern rising in it. She shoved the tears back, fumbled for his hand.

"Come with me," she said.

She lead him through warm darkness, past windows with heavy brocaded curtains, all of them tied shut. Cold drafts flowed from under the heavy edges and brushed against her bare toes. She took him into the east wing, away from the lit activity centers of the house, where the servants chatted and cleaned. The sounds of the storm seeped through the walls from all sides. She dealt with his direct, quiet questions about where they were going, why and what was she so upset about? "We're going to the library." she said, feeling her voice shake. "And I'll show you when we get there."

The library was silent, darkened, smelling of the resin the bookbinders used, and the crisp dry scent of old paper. The storm murmured from small windows hidden behind stone shelves. She felt Sasuke stroke her cheek with the back of his hand as her cold fingers slipped over the bolt lock. She looked up at him. There was only the faint light bouncing from the snowstorm outside, but she could see his expression. He looked worried. His eyebrows were furrowed a bit in concern. "It's about my father," she said tightly, swallowing hard. The door clicked open. "And yours. Come on.." She lead him across the darkness by memory, feeling him follow her a half-step behind.

The cabinets loomed out of the darkness in front of her. She leaned up on her tiptoes and reached into the fourth shelf from the right, her fingers finding the clay pots collected there. She found the key, identifying it by shape. Remembering that she had to look through a file of letters, she hurried over to the wall behind the cabinets, put her hand on the molded sockets of the switch, and turned on the lights between the shelves. Sasuke watched her, waiting, cut with sharp margins of light and darkness as the shadowed edges of stacked books fell over him. Hinata opened the cabinet, found her father's correspondence files, and thumbed back through the years. She heard Sasuke shift position slightly behind her. "What about my father?" he said, almost suspiciously.

She let out a breath. Her hands were shaking. She pursed her lips shut. "My father knew yours." she said, trying to keep her breathing slow and calm. "They had a fight over.. over some sort of legal thing that wasn't even very important, and because of that..." She bit into her lip, frustrated with all the little bits of paper, all ordered and annotated with her father's elegant black crest stamp. She had to go back twenty years before she found it. When she had it, she sat back on her heels. She let the box of filed paper fall back over her knees.

She stood up, little thin invoice notes curled and scattered at her feet, the edges stained with age. She held the stuffed envelope in front of her, turning it over. Sasuke had her shoulders in his hands suddenly, he had moved her back against him, he was looking over her shoulder, one hand rising from her arm to touch the crumpled heavy paper. Hinata opened it's string closure, opened it just enough to see that yes, it was the correspondence between her father and Uchiha Fugaku. She resealed the envelope. And handed it to him.

He moved her into the crook of one arm, taking it with his other hand. "What's this?" he said, his voice whispering close to her ear.

She told him.

After she'd gotten all the words out, she told him that she was sorry, that she apologized on behalf of her family, and that she knew an apology wasn't enough. She told him that she didn't know if she would ever be able to trust her father again. She said that if he didn't want to continue now, she would understand. And she felt herself saying that she had thought she loved her father, that she'd thought she wanted to be close to him; but then she caught herself and closed her mouth. It wasn't the time. Sasuke's arm had stiffened around her.

And silence fell.

Then he told her not to be ridiculous, it wasn't her fault. She'd just been a small child, there was nothing she could have done. He asked her to hold the envelope for a moment. He cleaned up the scattered paper, locked the cabinet back up, replaced the key and finally switched off the lights. He picked her up and carried her back to her room, because by then Hinata was shaking with silent tears, one hand pressed to her face, wetness slipping between her fingers, quivering with what she finally realized was rage.

They had only just arrived when Kimiko knocked. Sasuke put Hinata down on her bed and slid back the door, standing protectively between it and her. Hinata heard the murmur of their voices as he leaned out into the hallway to talk. He came back with a letter stamped with the inkjet numbers of the courier-nin. She wiped her aching eyes and said it was just from the academy. She had classes tomorrow.

"Classes in an ice storm?" he asked.

"Training exercises." she said. "To take advantage of the weather." He put the letter on her desk beside the envelope of old letters and sat back down by her side.

He pulled over the cushions scattered over her tatami mats and lifted her into his lap. He told her that it was over now and no one could change it. He said that he was glad to at least have the letters, because he didn't have much to remember his father by. She felt the flicker of the cat's tail over her bare feet, then the wet nub of it's nose. She just buried her face in her hands and didn't say anything, because her throat was clenched and she thought her chest would explode with fury if she didn't hold her mouth shut. She felt Sasuke take one arm, lift the cat onto her crumpled knees. She felt the touch of whiskers, then the cat's affectionate head butts, it's purr close against her ear. And Sasuke whispering that it would be all right, that she would get up tomorrow and the world would go on.

She could feel the front of Neji's shirt was stained wet from her tears, but he didn't seem to mind. He held her tightly and talked to her until she could assure him that she was all right. Then he fetched her tea and dinner from the kitchen. He told her he'd eat later, could she excuse him for a moment?

She looked up at him.

She spoke very precisely. "I'm going to become the heir." she said. "And I am going to _change this house."_

-----------------------------------------------

Hinata was crying. He was holding her, trying to staunch the flow of those tears. It felt like he was trying to hold back a river with only his two hands. She was telling him what the old woman had said. She seemed more furious then sad, and her choked voice was strong with determination, a hard undertone of fury.

And the way she said it.. he believed her. He took her at her word.

She was shaking, he was really starting to worry about her. She leaned her forehead against his chest as he awkwardly tried to comfort her. She told him that her family had decided to abandon him because of a number of petty, stupid things, and he stayed silent, taking this in, holding his temper down with an iron hand, because she needed him. Thinking about her situation. He certainly had a lot of experience with this type of thing, didn't he?

He told her what he knew about pushing through it, little as it was.

She quieted, it seemed to make her feel better. She started talking about her family, and all the problems she'd seen running through it, like hairline cracks. Most of it was pissant little power squabbles of the kind he saw all the time, back in Orochimaru's inner circle. He thought that a snakepit like this was not a place for a person like her. But he understood her need to do battle, and to take leadership of her family. He understood that very well. And he couldn't help thinking that it would be easier for her if she had someone else, someone who could tell her relatives to back the hell off if they tried to come after her. Someone who understood her situation, someone who was a lot less compassionate then she was, who could be a real bastard if necessary. And then he sighed, and remembered the faces of his parents, and thought that he knew exactly what he had to do. He had to go kill Itachi and then come back so he could help her.

And then he remembered Orochimaru. And then he felt panic rising in a sick, nauseous wave, so he told her he'd be back in a minute. He rushed through the house, threw open a side door that the wind tried to slam shut again in his face. He barely made it outside and away from the lit side of the house in time to throw up the entire contents of his stomach, the icy wind screaming in his ears and freezing water flowing down his face, into the collar of his shirt; his hands aching with cold, clenched in the wet snow.

Because Itachi was still out there, Itachi was still alive and he wasn't spending ever second and every ounce of energy hating him and trying to kill him. And that made him feel like the ground would drop out from under his feet. While he was feeling dizzy from that, trying to walk through the storm, trying to keep moving so he wouldn't throw up again, he spent four or five delirious minutes planning to leave that night, scour the country for Itachi, kill him, and run back before Hinata's intolerable asshole of a father could make her cry like that again. And thinking maybe that if he played the timing just right and did absolutely _nothing else, _he could pull it off. And he could return. And then he remembered Naruto and Sakura, and the missing-nin status hanging over his head. And then he was dry heaving, his eyes streaming tears from the cold wind, coughing up bile on his hands and knees in the snow.

He picked himself up, tried to keep walking, thought for a while that maybe he could take Hinata with him.. which of course was completely fucking nuts. And then, dizzy and shaking from all the vomiting, he imagined trying to kill her father, which given that Hyuga Hiashi had been a jounin when Sasuke had left Konoha six years ago, would be an excellent way to commit suicide.

Then, sitting on the wooden veranda and letting the ice storm batter him, shaking so hard that his teeth were rattling, he imagined going to Naruto, going to Sakura, just _letting _them save him. Letting them do what they wanted, if they were so _fucking _sure they had all the answers. And then he got up, stumbled through the yard until his hand slapped the side of a log dummy, and beat the hell out it until he couldn't feel anything but exhaustion and pain.

And then he stood, one hand braced against the icy surface of the log. He looked up past it, through the whirling snow to see the softened glow of light from the house. The wind drove heavy waves of ice down upon him relentlessly. He let a breath out, shuddering.

For the moment, he was safe. He could stay with Hinata for the duration of the storm. Maybe he could help her. This was the only immediate problem he had.

What had been done... He forced himself to breathe deeply, holding it, exhaling deliberately, slowly. It had been done far in the past, out of his reach, and nothing he could do or say or feel would make a difference. The past was fixed. He was here. There was nothing to do but go on.

He told himself that he had nothing to worry about. To just look behind him, the lights in the house were on. Everything was safe. She was safe. All was well. He breathed deeply, and opened his eyes.

Darkness.

He couldn't see the light from the house.

He whirled around, his balance foot skidding.

The house was black against the sky. Every light in the house was off.

Every single one.


	8. Clockwork

Every light in the district out and everything silent and wrong. And now ghosts would walk, would be glimpsed in little flashes, in his peripheral vision. Ghosts with red eyes, whirling with fury.

Just like this.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

In this house, Hinata thought, the new day always dawned at night.

Sasuke stepped out for a moment and disappeared for two hours.

The moment stretched. She knew he was upset, she'd seen it in the sharp flicker of his eyes. Already he couldn't fool her.

And outside, the storm wore on, it's icy roar drifting in and out of her mind. The lantern light painted distant gold across the whitewash of her bedroom's ceiling.

All around her, the four electric lanterns in her room burned incandescent yellow behind painted paper shades. Hanabi's cat rolled around on the tatami mats, settled in Hinata's lap to lick it's paws. Finally it napped, tucking it's fluffed tail around it's delicate feet. Hinata half-watched it, her byakugan flickering in and out, as she poked at her own tangle of thoughts, and just had no enthusiasm for trying to manage any of them. She saw the detailed fringe of it's closed eyes, it's tiny sharp claws just peeking out of downy fur. The swivel of it's ears.. and as she lingered over the details, calming herself with them, she knew that the problem facing her now was nothing compared to what Sasuke carried.

She could barely imagine. At least she still had a father.

The lanterns stood like silent guards. Four warm eyes. Somewhere in that endless pause of time, they flickered once, as if shaken too hard, and died. Hinata rested her eyes under the curl of her arm, and then opened them on sudden darkness.

But before that, the storm hurled ice against her window, and Hinata lay on her side on the tatami mats. Her hair spilled haphazardly off one of her embroidered cushions, half-pinned under her shoulder, pulling just a bit. One of her hands was bent just slightly awkwardly under her side, and she knew that she'll have a crick in it when she got up... whenever that would be.

She didn't know what she would do, what she _should_ do. What she could do, and she ultimately just didn't want to _do _anything. Somewhere Sasuke had gone to rage, to get rid of that hard gleam of anger she'd felt in him, even as he clenched it down. She felt it moving under his gentle hands.. and she held her breath, fearing more for him then for herself. She wondered how he could put it aside, such an elemental, basic wrong done to him. Do that, and focus on her. Her and her smaller, easier problems. Her father.. the way this house was, and she knew it was that way. She had lived here. She hadn't done it with her eyes closed.

So she watched Hanabi's cat investigate the tray of food Sasuke brought for her. She would have to make sure he didn't see that, it would show disrespect for the gesture. The cat sniffed around the shallow dishes, the little pink nose snuffling at the painted scales of whiskered fish in circular waves of indigo blue. When the cat chomped down the first bit of sashimi, Hinata sighed, pulled her trapped hand out, and thought that she wasn't all that hungry in the first place.

She could not believe her father had done that. She _could _believe her father would do that- she had been at the hands of this family and she knew what it did. She just wanted.. she thinks.. she wanted to think better of them.

She watched the cat tear through the fish, it's little claws wet now, each gleaming with a tiny warm reflection of the burning lanterns.

She still believed that she could change her house. But it was so slow.. and it just made her so angry. A little seven year old child wasn't a threat to anything, and they just left him out in the cold.

And to her, her sense of self was built upon the foundation of her name, her father's name. It was the hardline at the bottom of her cloudy handful of dreams. And now there was a crack in that dream.. or should have been. She lay back and straightened her spine from the awkward sprawl she'd twisted herself into... she realized that she expected to feel a sense of loss and betrayal. But she'd always known this, in the back of her mind.

She thought that maybe.. maybe this was where Hanabi drew her endless bright fury.

But Hinata was nothing like Hanabi. Shino said _accept it_, and she would accept it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

When he moved like this, when he hit the peak of adrenaline and his body was the direct line of action he'd trained it to be, his memories hit high-speed rewind. He retraced his steps, double and triple-checking, sure he felt a misstep somewhere, somehow he gotten himself into this _mess, _and.. the logic broke down in the middle. Nothing but flailing and fear, and his twelve year old self, that fractured reasoning.

When he moved... his mind was already five steps ahead, rationalizing _darkness.. lights out.. ice storm.. power outage- idiot! _And the downbeat was his gasp for air, the answer was the door latch stinging cold in his hand, the snap and brutality of the storm, the furious driving destroying power of it, percussive.. everything was percussion at this moment. He yanked the latch- locked. _Shit! _

Blown closed, locked behind him, the click lost in the howl of the storm... roundhouse.. he broke a window, smacked the shutter back, tumbled in.

Clumsily. Panicked. His hand was cut and warm now with blood. He felt the splintered maw of the shutter, but it would hold against the winds. He shoved it closed, shoved it's four latches down, he felt the wet fingerprints he made. The storm clawed at him through the broken window. He ducked under the heavy curtain, into the house.

Darkness.

_Power outage. _he told himself. _Calm the f-... calm down!... fucking sniveling moron... fucking power's out, that's all._

Cut instep. Wetness on his heel. He felt the bloody footprints being left too. He navigated and moved away through the darkness, he remembered this part of the house. He felt the quiet presence of the walls. Somewhere there was the murmur of voices, the scurry of activity. Higher in the house. He squeezed his eyes shut and did _not _remember fallen bodies, precise recordings of a crime scene, time-order-method of death.

And it was during early fall when it happened, so _that _was wrong...

And the panic couldn't work and just ended itself in progress. Sasuke just stumbled forward on his wet and dry feet in turn. He heard movement in other rooms. It was still warm here, but where was the feeling of warm currents? Furnace was off.. sudden silence.

And the darkness twisted all around him.

"Orochimaru." he breathed.

That presence. Sudden, immediate. Unmistakable. Descending before he could even raise his hands to protect himself, a snake lunging to strike.

-------------------------------------------

Accept it... The way the entire house had, and the village after them. It was easy, maybe. It wasn't as easy as it would be when he was eighteen and full of dark threatening anger, when Hinata would have some real reasons to fear for her safety. But before that, maybe you could see the killer's shadow on the little boy. Even if it was an _absolute lie _and she knew it.

Maybe she had already accepted it, in her own quiet way. She would not hate her father like Hanabi did. Not yet.. not while there was still a chance. She thought that she might never love her father now, that was lost. In these collisions with reality, some of her softness was lost, always, and this time it was the hope of love. But she could hold on to her dream of pulling the house together...

She turned on her back and looked up at nothing. The soft warm shadows formed in lantern light across the scrubbed white of her bedroom ceiling. The familiar scents surrounded her, the slight bitter edge of green tea, the clean smell of sandalwood and the oil polishes the servants used on the wooden backbone of the house. The scent of paper, and of ink, both so subtle as to be whispers. And the soft backdrop of the storm's fury sealed behind glass. The purr and soft plumed tail of her sister's cat. And no Sasuke, none of his electrical halo except a crisp, clear memory.

Sasuke. A complex subject lost behind a complicated maze of mirrors. Her family, the prism her whole sense of self came through.

No more broken now then it had been this morning before she knew, or every morning before.

She could give herself a moment to indulge that recent memory. She could warm herself with the memory of Sasuke's half-smile as he looked up from the book. There was sincerity to it, caution, as if he wasn't entirely sure himself, but he wanted to try just for her. For her, for the useless heir of the Hyuga...

But she believed it. She knew that he liked her, and that she liked him. That was one certainty. She could remember the hard clarity of Sasuke's eyes and believe that he saw clearly.

She didn't know why he had taken himself into the darkness, she drew the fleeced sleeves of her jacket tightly around herself, remembering what he'd told her.

Not that it was her business, or her place to intervene. She bore witness, but didn't speak and didn't move. It was his, this problem. This struggle, whatever it was in his eyes that held him down so hard, that pushed him so far beyond exhaustion and reason, all those unspoken hints of _why _in Naruto's eyes, when he avoided this subject.

Of Sasuke. His absence. His violent flight from the village. The blood and tears that spilled in his wake, and all of it went on behind closed doors, but Hinata had not lived in her team with closed eyes, either.

Not that she knew the details. She only knew the outlines of the story. She'd passed years a few steps away from what was left of his team. She knew that he'd run. She knew that he'd been chased. He'd attacked, Naruto had fluttered back to earth in flames, and they'd held him in bandages and jutsu bonds for weeks in the hospital, as if Sasuke had broken every bone in his body.

Other things were broken, she could sense it around the edges of Sakura's half-glance, the quiet stillness of anger on her face. Resignation that was really anger, that was becoming anger beneath. And the day that Hinata stood at Kurenai-sensei's bedside, and drifted to the window. She heard the strain of Naruto's voice, and then the slow burn of determination in his eyes, glinting up at her from the courtyard so far below. Hinata didn't know what went on in the secret heart of that team. But her softness gave her intuition. She felt it.

Kiba told her to not get involved, that it would just come back to bite her. His exact words. Shino touched upon the subject now and then, with careful precise fingers. In the end, Hinata mostly followed them into the future, away from the missing space that she could feel in Naruto. There was nothing she could do. Slowly she decided that the best thing she could do was continue to strengthen herself, honor her memory of Naruto's strength.

She knew very little about Sasuke, just that he, too, had been strong.

And so clear-sighted, able to see through her shyness. Able to see her at all. That moment when he'd glared, and before it, when he'd looked up in surprise, and he'd looked young and boyish, his dark hair sticking up in places, as if he'd just woken from a long peaceful sleep.

Could he be wrong? Lost? He seemed too sure, too confident for that.

His path was dark, and it took him far away.. but...

Hinata accepted the dark places, the cold places, the new and uncomfortable places where change took her. She tried to. She stumbled, she quivered, but she had never turned back. She had never walked away and gone back on her word. That was the fingerhold of strength she started with. She tried to pull herself up from there. And maybe this flight from Konoha was just Sasuke's own change. Even if he had to change into a missing-nin. That was more then Hinata would have been willing to give up...

The strength of his convictions, she thought. That's what she lacked. She hesitated. And she didn't always trust herself...

But she found her place of comfort, her own team had shifted itself to a calmer, more contemplative mood. She and Shino formed two poles, and Kiba bounced off harmlessly, contained and quieted between them. Hinata remembered meeting Kiba for the first time. He'd towered over her, and for a moment she thought the fur spilling from his jacket was his own, he just seemed to have so much hair, furry hands, massive fingers, bright animal eyes.

"He's gonna bite ya!" he said gleefully as Akamaru bounded into Hinata's lap. And Akamaru did, with sharp, hard little puppy teeth. Hinata tearfully washed off her bleeding hand at Shino's mother's kitchen sink. She dried her eyes with the back of her wet hand. But even as she winced and hunched her shoulders in embarrassment, she felt a slow sense of wellness, as if everything at that moment was all right. No one was angry with her or looking down on her. Kiba was testing her. Shino calmly bandaged her hand. And Kiba and his dog, having marked her and licked at her blood, seemed to decide that she was all right after all.

Now she was part of them and they were part of her. The bonds they made as teammates went well beyond those of simple friends. She'd wondered about the mystical processes the Hokage and jounins used to bind together the magical groups of three, to make it work just right, so they could grow and strengthen one another.

But it wasn't a happy memory she could rest in, not with the shadow of emptiness in Naruto's team close at hand.

It had been a perfect match. All three bright corners of team seven. They should have held together. They should have made it. Hinata just couldn't understand how they ended up this way, torn apart. Sasuke refusing to return, and now refusing to see them. Not even mentioning them, as if he didn't remember them.

No.. as if he wanted to forget them.

---------------------------------------------

Orochimaru.

...snaked out of the wall. Coils of heat with rattling tails.. pins and needles in Sasuke's half-frozen fingers.. white noise in his ears. He swayed off his feet, and the walls caught him. The walls held him up, but his shoulders sagged, heavy with wet fabric.

So he just slumped against the wall. Let it happen. There was nothing he could do, Orochimaru would do whatever he wanted. Sasuke would endure. He just let his foot slip forward, his body drop to the floor. Hair falling into his face, cold water dripping onto his knees.

Orochimaru. There all around him, writhing snakes, silent rattles, crawling all over him. Darkness all around.

"If you want me so much," Sasuke muttered, exhaustion speaking for him. "why don't you just come get me?"

No reply. Orochimaru's jeweled reptilian eyes. Jeweled crescents. Perfect machined clarity of sight, his eyes reaching through the darkness to pin Sasuke to the wall. Sasuke could feel it.

"Why don't you?" he whispered.

He wished Orochimaru would speak, cross the line of dreams in darkness. In whatever this was... some part of Sasuke still felt the prickle of genjutsu. He was in the Hyuga clan's house, wasn't he? Orochimaru was in Otokagure.

But Orochimaru was more then just his physical body, he'd worked all of his considerable magic to reach this point, where those two things were not bound or equivalent. Sasuke felt that he'd carried Orochimaru around in him, some part of Orochimaru's beckoning hand, from the moment he felt Orochimaru's teeth sliding into his neck.

And after that, much after, when Kakashi pulled him from the chuunin exam; and the tangles of ink snaked up all around him, bore their way into him. Snakes in his mind's eye, under his skin.

"Sensei." he whispered.

Respect taken and sold. Power given. And when the transaction was done and the blood had changed hands, Orochimaru finally materialized and became real.

"Continue." Orochimaru said, lazily.

Genjutsu shimmer. Sasuke could feel that dark fingerprint of energy washing around him, blooming on the surface of his skin, black flowers like dark blood, snakebite.

"Why don't you just force me?" Sasuke said, almost desperately. His throat cracking. "You're stronger.." _You'll always be stronger. _"Whatever you want from me... just fucking _take _it!"

He shuddered. The heat just couldn't touch him.

"If I wanted that," Orochimaru said, an oilslick rainbow of subharmonics shimmering behind his voice, "I could have kidnapped you from the forest. Couldn't I?" Then his soft laugh. "My dear, sweet, completely unimaginative Sasuke." With that particular compelling rhythm...

"Persuasion genjutsu." Sasuke muttered.

"Close. But do continue, this is very interesting."

"I'm not coming back to you!" His own lips felt cracked, wet with nervous tension.

"I see." The voice came out of the darkness, on a million different writhing wavelengths. Legless and unidirectional, nothing that Sasuke with his tactical mind full of straight line certainties could grasp at. "Are we actually going to mean it this time?" And the silence was heavy with everything Orochimaru didn't have to bother to say. _You need me _and _you want me _and _I have what you want _and _there is no other way _and _there's nothing else for you. _

Just nothing and everything and absolutely hopeless to even try to answer.

"I don't even fucking know _myself. _You know that." You _fucker. _Orochimaru, who knew him better then he knew himself. That knew every inch of flesh, ever twitch of fury. Who knew _him, _all the disgusting little secrets. Who wanted to hear Sasuke say them anyway, so Sasuke could know his own weakness just a little bit more.

Orochimaru lounged in the darkness, the entire darkness _was _him, it made tendrils and writhing bodies, shimmers of ringed muscle, dark long hair and wan pale flesh. Glittering inhuman eyes. Orochimaru's painted face and his honeyed lips, the sudden razor hardness of his teeth. Sasuke's own blood, warm and immediate and sharp. The darkness made everything, the voice came to him. Perfect. "Genjutsu," he gasped, whispering to himself.

Magic.

"Well, do tell. What do you think I want from you?" Orochimaru asked. He would turn his painted eyes to Sasuke and watch him as if he was interested in the answer. Sasuke would clench his fists and stiffen.

"You're wasting my time." he snapped, here and now.

Airy, breathy. "Oh?" Unconcerned.

"With _this!"_

"This pleasant conversation?"

"Psychological torture." he snarled.

A whispery velvety, almost smoky laugh. Temptations of darkness and power, and of transgressions too. All the lines that Sasuke longed to cross, to cut straight through to Itachi. "Tsk. We've discussed your negative attitude."

The hint of a reprimand nestled in approval. Affection. His father. Itachi. Orochimaru made all things possible again, and Sasuke struggled to keep his feet on the ground. Dreaming, now... lost to this dream, and it would feel so good to just let go.

If he could just let go and feel good, for once. Just for a minute.

And after he'd drank that moment dry...

"What's the point of it?" he muttered. All of this. This song and dance. Orochimaru's lust for performance. "If you want me, just _take _me."

The darkness turned, beneath his eyelids. As if all the snakes moved in unison. Orochimaru converged, all his silks and perfumes and forbidden pleasures, his silky promises, his hard hands, his teeth cutting deep, his hands and his tongue reaching down deeper, trying to crawl inside, Sasuke knew, from the inside out. Sasuke couldn't stop him.

Looking down into Naruto's still face. The Valley of the End. The forehead protector lying on the ground. Rain dripping off his face, raindrops standing on Naruto's chilled skin.

_Stop me, _he'd thought. _Stop me._

It was done now, there was no stopping it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hanabi's cat climbed onto Hinata's splayed arm and walked up over her shoulder, onto her chest. It swished it's tail high over her head, settled it's warm furry body so it squarely aligned with the meridian of her ribs. It peered at her with slitted eyes and pushed one paw under her chin. Animals could feel things.. know things. Simple things, the right place to go and the right thing to do...

She didn't know what she could do about her father. She didn't know what, if anything, she could or should do about Sasuke.. about what he'd told her, those dangerous people…

..that few moments in the garden where he told her the barest outlines of the facts, in between breaths of freezing air.

Snow caught in his dark hair, making him look less threatening. The dark surface of his eyes somehow stark enough to show the last glimmer of daylight, as it retreated under deep ragged layers of cloud and the sky softened into deep, misty shades of blue, darkening into midnight blues and blacks. All of it made in that moment just to form a backdrop to the quiet shadow of sadness that fell over his face. Uchiha Sasuke, only eighteen, only a few months older then Hinata herself. And already he felt so deeply lost, to her. As if he'd seen further into the ugliness of the world then Hinata ever would, just in his short life. And nothing had been given to him. He came out of that abyss with no wisdom, nothing but a collection of fading scars. That distant look of desolation, resting in his eyes for just a moment.

Strange.. disturbing, to Hinata. She dreamed of change, she prefigured the darkness. She allowed herself to imagine the challenges and shocks of the future, she imagined them as brave voyages. Her favorite storybook as a child had been the tales of pearl divers who ventured far under inky waters, dodging lurking octopus arms and jagged teeth. But to fall as Sasuke had, to descend and come up with nothing, no glittering coins or hidden treasures...

She'd paused then, in the garden, watching him. They weren't yet close enough for her to ask. This was still something that she could only look at politely, as he hesitantly uncovered these parts of himself. She remembered the twinge of worry she heard whispering in his voice, as if he wanted her to know him, all parts of him, but he feared that she would hate what she saw.. or..

Well. She did feel sorry for him. But it wasn't pity so much as a formless little thought, a twinge of her own, floating unspoken. Wanting.. dreaming.. imagining.. knowing that he would go back to his life as it was. She would go back to hers. That his own team had tried and failed, certainly she could not save him.

So Naruto and Sakura held the splinters of their team tightly, like two sides of a wound pressed, hoping that it would grow together again. They held the empty space shut, between their clasped hands. Could Hinata's team survive this? The loss of Kiba... and she and Shino would join hands and search for him. They would keep their own quiet, unspoken faith. And, she thinks, that she and Shino would be able to bring Kiba back. She and Kiba would be able to bring Shino back, should he have fallen over that edge. And she knows that if she ever fell, if she ever ran, then she would look over her shoulder to see Shino and Kiba, their hands, catching her between them. Their team's three corners balanced and the center held. But something went wrong in team seven. Or maybe it's energy was just too unstable, that it tore itself apart, finally.

But she could swear that Sakura and Naruto could have saved him. That they should of.. that Sasuke stopped them, froze them in place. Somehow, so he could slip their grasp. Or maybe he just was so determined. Or maybe, there just had never been any closeness in their team. That was the half-formed thought that had bothered her, back when the ruin of Team seven was fresh and new. What if she only imagined the closeness of her own team?

But she only had to meet with them, see them, get lifted off her feet by Kiba, or to feel Shino's strong, gentle hand on her shoulder. And she knew she had imagined nothing. She didn't think that Naruto and Sakura could have imagined that bond that drove them so far...

And it just seemed to make no difference.

It was ironic that her family with it's ordered, fractured, clockwork heart could seem so simple in comparison.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shut _up, _Naruto. It was done. It had been done at the Valley, in that moment.

It was already too late.

He was lost in the memories. Orochimaru's beckoning hand. The arms that Sasuke felt opening up to him in the darkness. He left Naruto at the water's edge and ran, like a child. Into Orochimaru's waiting arms.

And now, the memories. Genjutsu. Sasuke was sure that it wasn't happening, but it felt so clear, and so real. The perfect impression of this moment, burnt into him. Of many late nights, like this one. Sasuke would be alone in his room in Otokagure. He would be exhausted, hurting from training. Pleased, because this would make him feel just a little bit closer to where he wanted to be. He would close his eyes.

The slide of silk on silk would alert Sasuke to Orochimaru's presence. He'd think of snakes with silken scales. He'd be in bed, it would be late, he'd be half-asleep and drifting. Orochimaru would slither through the crack in the door.

Sasuke would not open his eyes, but he'd hear the soft rustles and then the sound of clothes falling to the stone floor. Maybe the whisper of one footfall, as Orochimaru wanted to tease him with the process of climbing into his bed. Sasuke would feel the bed shift, the sheets open and then the sinuous ripple of cool-skinned living things suddenly in bed with him. He'd have turned over, obediently, long ago. And he'd be listening to the throb of his heart, breathing a bit hard already, because he knew what was coming... Orochimaru would pull down whatever clothes he was wearing, and then he'll feel the cool touch of lubricants, like the snakes, a cool, smooth feeling, reptilian and strange. And then, as he bit his lip, Orochimaru would make him feel whatever Orochimaru wanted him to feel... pain, pleasure, or a combination...

And Orochimaru's voice went on. Unwinding, like an endless river of blood.

"The question is..." The syllables like a caress from a hard bony hand. "...why do _you _want _me?" _On and on.. "You know what I am. You know what I'm doing. You _know, _and you stay... you chase me." Hisses, more like a fire. Impression in flame. Orochimaru. Sasuke's own heartbeat racing, the air shuddering in his lungs. "You come to me. You beg me for my attention." Insults flying past his head like blunt objects. None of them untrue. "You're a clever boy, Sasuke.. very, _very _clever..." None of it touching him. Safe from everything, secure and acknowledged and locked in the sights of Orochimaru's eyes. Mesmerized. Quivering, gasping for breath, silently rushing with blood under Orochimaru's heavy hand.

On and on and on.. if Orochimaru stopped, if Orochimaru _ever _stopped this, Sasuke would beg him to continue.

He knows this.

_Stop me. _he whispered to Naruto, but Naruto was out cold. The rain fell down on them both, and Sasuke was alone...

But Orochimaru never stopped, he held Sasuke perfectly tight. That hand would never deviate, and Sasuke exhaled in one shaky relieved rush. Orochimaru's voice wrapped around him like long skeins of silk, unraveling.

"And why is that?" The first lick of his smooth tongue at Sasuke's ear. Singsong with indulgence. "Why?" a breath of cool, clean air. "It's because I hurt you. I hurt you just the way you like... my fortunate son." The flicker of that tongue up and down Sasuke's neck as he strained, caught against the wall. Pinned and restrained so perfectly, weighted with the heavy embrace of tight coils. His own rough, harsh gasps for breath close in his ears.

Orochimaru would take him now. Now.. now.. _now! _And he'd shiver with horror and delight, Orochimaru would lift him up, turn him over. Fuck him hard and fast against the wooden floor, and his body would just be alive with crawling flames and darkness and power and that feeling, the one that was born in the blood smudge of the curse seal. When Orochimaru reached out to touch him. To claim him. The rest was just formalities, Sasuke was _his._

Wasn't he?

Afterwards, wet and furious, tense with that fury. Thinking, now. Remembering back into that sweet, impossible rush of blood, headlong rushes to destruction. Remembering what Orochimaru said, coming back to himself.

"It's for the power, you piece of shit!" he hissed. One hand to his face, fingers clawing, trying to feel his own flesh, remember his own thoughts, remember himself after being wiped out so completely and perfectly.

And Orochimaru's silken laugh, smooth as honey now. All the jagged edges ground down and dissolved like glass.

"Well, I've trained you." Orochimaru said, knitting his bony fingers.

Clawing. His skin scraping. Heat and wetness now on the tips of Sasuke's fingers. His skin is dry, his hair is damp, how long has he been here? Caught in the coils of the illusion. His teeth set on edge. "_You _did that."

"You enjoyed it."

"Not as much as _you _did!"

A soft chuckle. "Granted. Ahh... my favorite toy. You know what I love best? I can reduce you to an angry teenager full of sullen accusations. I can do it less then a minute. You're so..._so _easy.. it would have taken me years to break Itachi down this way- ah!" A sudden brightness, delighted amusement. "That offends you!"

And this could go on for some time. This useless push and pull of conversation. Orochimaru fucking him with words, with his tongue... fucking _with _him, to be exact. It was all the same thing, in the end. Orochimaru liked to play and he liked to drag these moments out.

"You did something to me." Sasuke whispered. His head pounded against his hand. The genjutsu was resolving to a migraine's low throb, changing shape in the darkness.

"Ah, about that..."

"You sent me back here."

In rhythm. Call, response. Perfect timing. "The opposite, really."

"Then why am I here?" Desperation flaring in his voice. Coated with a thin layer of anger, but..

"Three guesses..."

And Sasuke falling firmly into silence.

Orochimaru's voice. Catching him, cradling him. Holding him close, as Orochimaru wove his magic words in rhythms too arcane and complex for Sasuke to follow. Orochimaru whispered that Sasuke had been inattentive for some time. His heart wasn't in it.

"And where was your heart?" The lilting inflection, Orochimaru begging a question. "I suppressed your conscious mind, and off you went."

Something in Orochimaru's tone, that grassy scent of burning things. That hint of decay. The stench of his summoned snake, that afternoon in the Forest of Death, when Orochimaru had waltzed right into the middle of the chuunin exam. _Like he owned the place. _ Ready to lay his claim.

"Right back home." Orochimaru whispered in his ear. "How sweet."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But there was no urgency. Hinata lay back and watched the cat. She found her mind drifting back to what Sasuke told her, out in the garden. About the people he was involved with, far away from Konoha. Lost in some precision nightmare of his own, dressed up in the darkness of a dream.

At the time, listening to him, she was focused more on comforting him, assuring him that it was all right, that she still liked him. That nothing had changed.

And as she listened, and took it all in, it seemed to her that it really wasn't that different then what a kunoichi might be called upon to do in service of a mission. His new sensei sounded horrible to Hinata, but she also knew that her world of the ninja, the one that took place inside the guarded walls of her house, was artificial and pretentious compared to the reality of what really went on in this way of life. Maybe they did not, as a rule, procure and kill villagers for the pleasure of high-ranking ninja leaders in Konoha, but they still killed for money. The difference was just a matter of degrees... And she didn't like these rationalizations. But... it _was _true. She couldn't judge. Otokagure sounded like a horrible place to her, but maybe Sasuke needed to pass through horrible places, dark places, in service of his own path of change.

She wasn't skilled with seeing motivation and inner thought with her byakugan, not yet. But maybe some part of it registered, and her mind just couldn't grasp it fully. She was still sure that he was not malicious, he was not evil. He was not a bad person...

She sighed. Pulled herself up to a sitting position. Her hair clung to her shoulders, staticky from the pillows.

She'd have to deal with the tray before Sasuke got back, it would be incredibly disrespectful to let him see this, her ignoring what she knows is- in effect- a peace offering. A tangible symbol of what he can't say or provide to her in words, providing her with comfort in objects instead. Cushions, hot tea, a meal carried from the kitchen. Doing what he can, as best he can... she really did like him.

But she gave up on the tray as she watched Hanabi's cat gulp down the last bit of fish. There was no point now. She collected herself, smoothed the fabric of her jacket with one hand. She should go find Sasuke. She promised Miya that she would, and...

The lights went out then. Darkness fell, and Hinata heard the cat's soft paws whisper across the floor, out through the slightly ajar door. Into darkness beyond, the hall and the entire house yawning in warm, soft black space.

Familiar, more so even when it was unseen. When it all became her other senses, hearing and touch. Inviting her to imagine it exactly how she liked.

So off she went, into the darkness, to find him.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sweetness. The smell of something burning. That scent that clung to that grass-nin, in the forest. His grasping fangs. Sasuke shivered against the cool touch of Orochimaru's fingers.

"You're... you're up to something." He meant it to be a sharp taunt. It came out as a whimper.

Orochimaru only leaned in, looming over him like a swaying hooded cobra. "Mmm... my dear, sweet, suspicious little Sasuke..." A flicker of fire, Orochimaru licking his lips.

Sasuke turned his head. He was pinned, helpless...waiting, ready, panting with anticipation. The words wanted to come out a moans, as desperate whispers.

"You wouldn't..." His voice was rising. Orochimaru was pulling him tight, grinding his firm coils in just the right place, the right way. Finding Sasuke in his wet clothes, half-hard, and Sasuke yanked his head to the other side, trying to shake Orochimaru off, trying to pull him in deeper. "You wouldn't just let me leave... You'd never give it to me for free.." he gasped.

Orochimaru right against him then. Smooth scales gliding over his skin. Words dying in his throat, drowning in a welling of gasps, that sudden sharp feeling, Orochimaru's bony hand in his pants now, stroking him just _right, _perfectly.. and there just being no will to resist in the world. Nothing to do but feel it.

"You forget history, darling." Amusement curling in Orochimaru's close whisper. His hand getting tighter, more insistent. "Come on, then..." And Sasuke clenched up, his head jerking back. Trying to swallow that sharp flinch of pleasure behind his clenched teeth, half-succeeding, hissing sharply instead...

"You're not..." the air was rushing out of him, as the muscles at the small of his back twitched. "...you're not here, are you? Not really.."

Orochimaru answered with one long, achingly slow stroke. He waited for Sasuke to gasp, the flick of his tongue dancing over Sasuke's ear.

"Post-hypnotic genjutsu. I wanted you to decide."

Orochimaru's fingers clenched hard under one of his knees. Orochimaru had him cantilevered against the wall, one ankle in each tight hand. In the space of a heartbeat, Orochimaru was inside him. Moving. Slithering, writhing. His body was just a helpless instrument, caught in the sure hands of his master.

It was true...

..what Orochimaru said.

No one could make it hurt so perfectly and beautifully. No one else could ever hurt him and make it feel so, _so _good. And it filled up all the yawning black spaces for just a moment. And he never quite knew when it was coming... as the line blurred between punishment and reward, and now neither was complete, they pinwheeled yin and yang with the other.

Orochimaru finished, always, by leaving a sticky line on the small of Sasuke's back. Marked territory. And Sasuke would let that held breath out slowly, thinking that he'd have to _get up_ and wash it off now, and telling himself that all he felt was irritation...

But his back was dry against his hand, now.

His clothes were wet, his skin was damp, but there was no stickiness. Sasuke only heard his own heartbeat and his own breathing. The darkness had fallen still and silent.

Post-hypnotic genjutsu. He'd never heard of that before. But... he groped in the darkness, found the floor, the wall, began to reorient himself... he'd definitely have to read up on it.

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Hinata paused at the doorway. The light from her window was so slight, there was nothing but blackness in the hall beyond. There was only the hint of incense to help remind her where the stairway was. Sasuke had gone this way, hours before.

A dark house in the middle of a raging storm. This wouldn't be a problem for a shinobi, even if Sasuke was unfamiliar with the layout of halls and rooms. Some part of Hinata knew that if Sasuke wanted to be back, he would be.

But she searched the hallway, feeling with her byakugan and her second senses, the ones that would make chakra flare up and down the tiny hairs at the back of his neck. They'd prickle, she'll feel him close. Or, she'd feel the hint of energy, the places where he's passed. Invisible footprints. But he's not here.

As she moved into each room in turn, sliding open rice paper doors onto new pockets of blackness, each room with just a slightly different tenor of stillness. The storm moves behind the scenes, and the familiar rooms form strange shadows in it's faint hint of light. It's not enough for her to see by, but some trace of heat in it makes it gleam like soft clouded moonlight to her byakugan eyes. She finds herself contemplating his absence. The yawning hole in team seven. The efforts to save him, the way that Naruto and Sakura could not, and a stranger like Hinata could never hope to. She knows she shouldn't, and she tries not to, but..

Well...

But maybe.. maybe his problems and feelings were too dark and tangled for her to understand. Maybe she shouldn't touch him. Maybe she'd burn her fingers, but she worried more about knocking him off balance with her fumbling hand, trying to steady him. Trying to make him feel better, robbing him of some essential driving sliver of pain. Maybe his entire path was predicated on pain. Maybe it made him what he was, and took him where he needed to go.

Which was away from the village. Away from Naruto and Sakura.

Away from sense and reason and everything that other wiser people would tell him. Into dark places, difficult places. Places he had to pass through. Difficulties he had to feel. Things he _had _to see, to experience. Not every path was a bright one. They were ninja, they were not samurai. They dealt in darkness.

If that was his path, Hinata could not- should not- interfere. Her own path brought her sorrow at times. If Shino or Kiba were to hold her back, every time she might be hurt, or worried, or troubled, she would get nowhere.

"Pain is life." Shino said to her, calm and certain.

Kiba laughed. "Life is pain!"

But they were her team, her friends, they went _beyond _friends into something else, something deeper and more complicated, something that would hurt so badly to lose. Maybe that was why, that Naruto and Sakura just _could not lose him, _they couldn't stop feeling and protecting and loving him. He was their teammate. Nothing would change that.

And there was no one in these rooms. Even the faint distant presence of the servants had faded. They had moved to another part of the house. Hinata could feel their echo.. here.. where the lemon oil scent was just a bit stronger, because the oil had not yet dried. This was recent. And there was a hint of body heat here, just a subconscious memory, but her byakugan could see it.

There. Sasuke's half-footprint. Toes and the ball of his foot, he was moving quickly, rushing. To what? The energy marker was here, fading and hours old. She half-knelt, drew her fingers through the faint quiver of chakra. Here. He couldn't be far.

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He was eighteen and not seven.

This house was bigger, warmer, and didn't smell like his old house did- _like blood _his mind immediately filled in for him- and he had to smash both hands against his mouth to keep from throwing up again.

_Outage. _he tells himself sharply. _The fucking power is fucking out. Understand? _

Orochimaru's half-forgotten whisper, caught in the coils of genjutsu.

_Here's a clue for you. Where's your sword?_

Sasuke told the illusion that Orochimaru had knocked it out of his hand. Sasuke had heard it strike the floor of the dojo, it's heavy ringing impact. Orochimaru had seized his hand, squeezed hard fingertips cruelly into pressure points, and twisted that arm behind his back.. and it wasn't as if Sasuke was going to forget that, it had been fucking _embarrassing, _being caught and disarmed so easily. Letting Orochimaru wear him down to exhaustion and slowed reflexes, waiting hunched over in Orochimaru's tight hands, wondering if Orochimaru would break his wrist, just to teach him a lesson...

_I wasn't using a poisoned blade, _he told Orochimaru.

The lesson being pain for it's own sake. The lesson being the punishment for slowness, for loss of power, for just not being strong enough in the first place, and now Orochimaru would do anything he wanted, and Sasuke would simply be unable to stop him. The same lesson Sasuke had learned very well at Itachi's perversely soft hands, it wasn't something Sasuke had to learn over and over again. Orochimaru just enjoyed it.. that sick _fuck._

_I wasn't using a poisoned blade. _Sasuke argued. The infection in his side... it was a wound consistent with a botched attempt at seppuku, maybe. Maybe if Sasuke was that _fucking stupid, _which he liked to believe he was not. Samurai affectations were Orochimaru's sick little fantasy, not his. And it couldn't explain the infection, so Orochimaru could just _shut _his ugly wide mouth.

In the end, in the dying tendrils of the illusion, Orochimaru faded into his own echoes of soft laughter. So unhurried, as if Orochimaru just knew that Sasuke would run to him, and he would just have to sit back, enjoy it, watch it all happen. _So you ran. _Orochimaru whispered, as Sasuke gritted his teeth against the warm swipe of Orochimaru's tongue. _You ran, and you ran.. and you ran. Always running.. _Orochimaru knowing him better then he knew himself. Orochimaru being privy to every hidden secret of his body, using every way and means now, to get inside it, to revel in what he just knew would always, _always, _be his.

_Running. _Orochimaru licked the word into him, wet swipes of his tongue on Sasuke's neck, his chest. _Suicidal. _And it just made him _so fucking angry, _he struggled in Orochimaru's tightly coiled arms. The genjutsu fell apart.

And he was back. Dripping wet, dropped back into the world of the living. A second had passed here, maybe less then that.

The ice was melting from his hair, dripping into his eyes. His clothes hung on him, soaked and clinging to his skin. He was lying by the wall, just where he'd fallen. His cheek was pressed into the metal grate of a heat vent. He opened his eyes and found himself staring down, the deeper darkness of the furnace vent staring back up at him.

He pulled himself upright. More darkness, different shades of darkness.. the room was there, the layout of the house could be guessed.

He needed a moment to rest, because something about that bit of genjutsu had reached in just a bit too far. Orochimaru knew how his mind worked, so he liked to keep the goalposts floating. As long as everything was in motion and nothing was certain, Sasuke had nothing to hang onto, and he'd never really be able to get a fix on the situation...

Orochimaru was teaching him, he was getting stronger. No one in Konoha would have _ever _taught him these sword patterns. Or these genjutsu techniques. He was learning, ever the dutiful and obsessive student. And at the end of the day, maybe he just wanted a little bit of approval, a little bit of something between recognition and affection. Orochimaru saw him, all right. Orochimaru knew _exactly _what he was, and how he was and was not like Itachi. And Orochimaru doled this information out in little bits, little brief breaths of air. So that Sasuke would hang on, desperately, waiting and needing and dying for more.

And Orochimaru divined, then offered up, exactly what Sasuke wanted. Exactly.

So who the hell _knew _what Orochimaru was twisting him into. With all those hidden hands working behind the scenes, working too fast for Sasuke to notice and follow. Orochimaru swept him off balance, and moved to keep him there. So Sasuke really had no idea what Orochimaru wanted.

Or where this all was going.

_I don't even know what will happen to me, _he said to Naruto, that moment at the falls where they were close enough to feel one another's breath on their wet skin.

It was true. He'd had no idea. He still had no idea. Maybe he was just used to the idea of the future being dark, threatening, bleak and impossible to think about...

So what was the problem here?

He couldn't walk away from Orochimaru. He couldn't deviate from his path one _inch _because then the ground fell away and he had nothing, it had _all been for nothing, _and he just couldn't do that. He couldn't let go.

There was also the fact that Orochimaru would never let him go, but that was kind of a formality at this point, wasn't it?

He was tired of sitting in a damp lump against the rapidly cooling wall, so he got up. He started walking. He'd find Hinata, which was the proper course of action. She'd know where to get dry clothes, where to find candles. They could talk, or they could just watch the storm. He'd feel better being around her at this moment. When he was with her, he felt like Orochimaru's bony hand was just a bit further away from his throat.

And she was _fine. _Safe. It was just a power outage.

_Walk. _He told himself. _Find her. _It was simple enough.

---------------------------------------------------------------

In every room, up on the highest floor, in every neatly constructed paper space, were candles. Candles made with green tea and lemon myrtle. Pale green wax.

With the wooden matches in her pocket, she lit them. She marked each room. As she doubled back on her tracks, visiting rooms already passed, she saw the faint warm light burning behind the paper, lighting up the entire space with a hint of warmth. Even with the furnace off, the heat fading. As she retraced her steps through each wing, east, west and north, the flames sank into the wax and burned pear-red in it's liquid heart. The candlelight faded from a bright yellow to a soft gold. And each greeted her, silently. A whole floor full of silent, hopeful candles.

Her house was strange when it was empty. She was used to it being full of whispers, and closed doors, secret meetings.

It felt like an exorcism, lighting all these candles, bathing each dark corner in soft light.

Quiet contemplation, the soft feet of other housecats on the rafters above her. The silent curl of a sleek tail glimpsed between wooden slats. And once, in the distance of the long main hall, the luminescent green of blinked eyes, finding her in the darkness, seeing her byakugan and slipping away, unsettled.

The cats in this house never did get used to it.

And by now, Hinata knew that it was less a matter of searching then introspection, putting her history in last orders and rites before she took this step. Imagining that in the darkness, Sasuke moved closer to her. That he was waiting somewhere, poised catlike on the roof, lost in the howl of the storm. Hinata herself already lost to her own completely inappropriate fantasies. Thinking.. imagining how his gentle callused hands would feel on her bare body. How he would feel inside, if she dared to go that far. And she thought that she might. Time was short. Time was growing shorter, the candles were burning down. Soon enough she'd have nothing left of him but memories. So... there was no time to hesitate.

The cats shadowed her steps as she crept downstairs, moving through perfect darkness. She left the candles burning behind her.

Down on a different floor now, a different level. Dividing her house in her mind into stored memories, feelings, intentions. The house itself was a temple of memory. It held the whispers of energy from her ancestors, the full unbroken line. The traces of light from every star in their constellation.. she found another trace of chakra, Sasuke's footprint pressed to the bottom stair. Here. She bent to touch it with her hand.

All her life, she has been taught to appear clear, calm, still. Perfect.

And inside her, a tiny patch of warmth. Like she imagined the storm that pressed in on her from every window, every subconscious shiver of the walls. She had her byakugan open and ready, it maked it easier to search in darkness. Sasuke's body heat would shimmer into focus, iridescent.

Her own would feather out in blue waves from her as she moved, a lightweight heat shadow through the cooling house. The color was going out of these walls, moments earlier they held a rosy pink-purple glow, a footprint of radiant heat. Sasuke was not here. Methodically searching, taking her time...

Because this was all happening so fast. A few days. Less then a week ago, she was just proceeding along with her ordered life. She was not sad. She was not happy exactly. She enjoyed her job. She had her usual calm, measured hopes for the future, won by example and experience. She could not hope for spectacular leaps and bounds, but she had seen that she could take small, steady steps forward. And she continued. She moved forward towards her father, and to Neji. Towards Naruto and Sakura. Some of those steps being conversely away from Naruto, prying herself loose from her feelings.. trying to learn this lesson, slowly and easily, trying to be patient with herself. Naruto did not love her. Maybe she had not loved him..

But she had.

Naruto was a star. It didn't matter what other people said. Hinata heard the whispers and the stern hisses of the parents as they pulled their children away from him. She saw something else entirely, he lit her world up like wildfire. His blue eyes cut through the classroom with sizzling energy, it pierced right through her... and it woke her up, shocked her awake in so many ways. She'd leave at the end of the day, quivering with as much excitement as anxiety.

Being close to him was strange, and new, and fun even though it was scary. He was so different then everyone else she had known. She was used to the calm, cold focus of her family. Their decisive words and actions. The sharp turns of their ordered fighting form. No surprises.. no smiles and nothing like Naruto's infectious energy. She couldn't understand why everyone didn't love him. In her own shy, quiet way, with her quietly broken heart, she loved him as best she could.

He was, at the time, really the only thing that made her feel alive at all. Otherwise she was just the forgotten daughter. Another silent child in the house of Hyuga. She had yet to meet her team. Hanabi and Neji still drifted far away, lost in their own lonely orbits. And even after she drew closer to all of them, Naruto still pulled him into his circle of influence. He made her feel there was hope and there was a future. He made her believe that things could change. Shino directed her, he steadied her hands as she fumbled towards change. But Naruto was the spark of inspiration. She would be lost in the darkness, still locked up in her family's house, lost alone in the world, if not for him. Childish or not, she had loved him. She loved him now.

But he married someone else. And Hinata was friends with that someone else. She admired Sakura. Sakura was strong, and she managed it in a way that allowed for compassion. Sakura was harder then she was, too, Hinata knew. She'd felt Sakura pat her shoulder comfortingly when she'd come to her, worried about her father. Her father had just collapsed at a family meeting. The house had been full of whispers, rumors. Neji had been tense with her that morning, not wanting to look at her. And Hinata had just had to _get out _of that house, of that close atmosphere. It felt like a room rigged with hidden explosives. She couldn't wait for the triggers to be struck. She ran to Sakura, and Sakura calmed her down, in her own hard-edged way... Hinata remembered.

And Sakura would have helped her with her family in other ways, had she asked. Sakura and Naruto were there for her. They invited her to their wedding. They invited her to dinner.. and they all talked, and drank a bit too much, and they almost felt like adults, Hinata thought. It almost felt like she was growing up too, right along with them. She was still shy, and beneath her rigorous training in etiquette, she was uncertain about friendships. But they were determined. Even when she fumbled the hints they gave to her, invitations and smiles and pressed hands.. they kept trying. And she was a bit more confident now. She could call them her friends.

She couldn't hate Sakura.

She loved, in fact, the way they looked together. The way they'd looked in their wedding photos, both of them flushed and bright-eyed with excitement. Naruto's face-splitting grin, his brilliant blue eyes. That victory sign he flashed to the camera, the look written all over him, how much he loved her and couldn't believe that she was his. Sakura.

So much happiness. The kind that you could feel in the air. You could touch it with your hand, and it would go through you, like a warm shiver. Bittersweet, too, because Hinata did not have this for herself. But she kept it tucked away. When Sakura handed out the photographs, Hinata kept that one. She tucked it into her favorite book, pressed it with pages full of violets and lavender. She waited until spring and collected the flowers from the yoshino cherry trees in the east garden, when they bloomed like floating late winter snow. She pressed those white blossoms nearest to that hidden photograph... and she loved them both. It was taking time, that was all. She just had to resolve that love into friendship. To separate it from her own girlish crush. But it was more rewarding.. it would have to be. She'd rather be a strong, supportive friend at their side then a lonely girl nursing a broken heart.

And maybe someday, she would have this for herself. A love like that. Not something from a fairy tale, necessarily. But something warm and steady, and real. The look in their eyes in those photographs, secure and happy and relaxed in love, even as that love lit them up with excitement and promise. Just like that. She had to believe she would find it someday.

Or, if that was not her path..

..that she would at least live and travel close to it, all her life. That she would be by their side. She would be with them, and with Kiba and Shino, close in her own way, close to her own centers of warmth.

She often wondered if she was secretly like her mother. Her mother.. who had struggled to bear her, then finally died in the process of bearing Hanabi, as if she sensed that her usefulness to the family had come to an end.

Her mother was a hidden secret, unspoken of by her father and her family. Not to be mentioned. Hinata reached with her byakugan and tried to discern her mother's spirit. She tried to remember her mother.. her mother's voice, her mother's hands. But Hinata had been taken from her so early, placed into the harder, colder hands of her family elders. They had converged around her, coaxing the blood out of her. Their byakugan eyes all around, staring down at her from so high above.

And there was almost no trace of her mother now, not in this house. Sometimes Hinata would imagine looking at her father, imagining that somehow she could use the byakugan and he would not mind or notice. She would search the embroidered coils of his trained, perfectly shaped chakra for the memory of her mother. Once he had loved her... he must have. Hinata didn't want to believe otherwise.. and...

..at least she had herself, and her sister Hanabi. Both of them carried the blood echoes of their mother. She could look into Hanabi's eyes and start to piece together her own brief, distant memories. She knew Hanabi had been handed over to the higher ranks of the family even sooner. Before she could walk. They waited for her to be weaned, and then...

But Hinata never felt closer to her mother then when she looked at Hanabi. When Hanabi was sitting beside her, squirming or complaining, more often then not in the middle of an adolescent sulk about something. But Hanabi was her link to that hidden secret of her past. And as she thought of this, she felt it again. That soft half-shock of realization, feeling how much she loved her little sister. It always felt strange.. and good. Another hidden secret, a pocket of hidden warmth in a house so full of scrubbed, sterile hierarchies and iron-clad traditions.

Even if her father did not love her mother, she could believe that Neji's parents were in love.

From what she remembered of her uncle, he seemed a bit softer then her father. She could imagine him looking at his wife with affection. She could imagine Neji springing from a place of warmth and love.

Though, of course, it was not something she could ask him. They were not quite close enough yet. And it was difficult. She looked into his eyes and felt the curse seal upon him. She wanted to put her hand on it, cover it. Show him some trace of this unfinished regret she felt.

_I would never do that to you. _ she would say.

But they were not close enough. Not yet. Touching was not allowed unless in the context of sparring. Too much familiarity was a delicate line to walk. She knew Neji was trying, but the weight of history hung low between them.

And that reminded her. There were many things her father had done that she simply couldn't accept.

But she had to accept them. She had to live in this house. She could fight to become the heir, she could fight to change the way of the family. But in the meantime she knew she did what she was meant to do. She 'accepted' it in a way that was more about burying it in her mind as quickly as possible. Reaching for the thousand polite obfuscations of the Hyuga, who, after all, had been doing these things for centuries. They were skilled in hiding this ugliness from first glance.

And from themselves, Hinata thought. _Most of all from ourselves._

----------------------------------------------

Orochimaru. That genjutsu, triggered by post-hypnotic suggestion. It hadn't come for nothing. It wasn't just the trigger.

As a twelve year old, making very hasty and stupid decisions, he'd run away, run away from Konoha and from Sakura, and mostly from Naruto. He'd run right into Orochimaru's open arms.

And now, Orochimaru maintained his leashes and tethers in underhanded subconscious ways. Orochimaru knew that anything concrete, anything Sasuke could pinpoint was something he could start to work on breaking. But if it was all subliminal.. underhanded.. manipulative.. conditioned...

The problem was that when he was twelve, firstly, he hadn't been thinking. And secondly, he'd somehow thought he was stronger then Orochimaru, that he was smarter, that he could outrun this mess unscathed. Or rather, that it was all so abstract and hypothetical after the fact of Itachi's death that he didn't consider it an important subject. So he threw his future and his life into Orochimaru's gaping throat, nothing was too good to throw away. He really had been fucking suicidal, he _hated it _when Orochimaru was right like that, all the time. It was sickening, it was _terrifying _and it was so _fucking _unfair. No one had put out their hand, no one had stopped him, and...

...and. He really did think that. He caught himself thinking that. That no one had tried to save him.

Well, he was eighteen now. Maybe he still wasn't thinking. Maybe he was still a stupid kid- book smart and sharply analytical, levelheaded in some essential way- but just fucking _incapable _of dealing with his own life or problems. He didn't know. He just was _not _going back to Orochimaru. He wasn't running into those open arms, those jeweled eyes that knew and saw and _understood _too, just as Hinata did.

Orochimaru would come. He'd come to collect. He'd bring his contracts signed in blood. And he might tear down half of Konoha. He might just split Sasuke open like a blood sacrifice on the Hyuga's well-swept stone stairs, slurp up blood and internal organs and whatever else he wanted. Slice the sharingan out of Sasuke's eyes, have it stitched right into him, sitting there on the bloodied stairs, Kabuto working wet-handed, quick with the needle. But Sasuke was not going back.

At least... at least, Orochimaru was a missing-nin who far outstripped anything Sasuke had ever done. He could turn state's evidence against Orochimaru, bargain against his future, give them all the little pieces of slimy information that Orochimaru had paraded in front of him. Assuming that Orochimaru had ever shown him anything for what it was- unlikely, Orochimaru had an addiction for the misguided and misdirected. But Sasuke would fall back behind the lines of Konoha's defenses. He would put those hours in as an informant, he would serve his time in their interrogation rooms, he would go to prison if that's what they wanted, he would do this because he _had _to get _out. _

Or so he felt in this moment, walking dizzily through Hinata's house, fighting another panic attack down.

And it was his fault, he had fought and kicked and screamed at everyone who'd lined up to warn him off.. and now he would pay for it.

Still...

No one understood what this felt like. His own brother. No one would know those afternoons in late summer. The sun would be dipping down close to the horizon, and the cliffs of Konoha would turn dark. He'd run through the fields with Itachi. Itachi would carry him after he ran himself to exhaustion. Itachi would curl his small hands around the shuriken, showing him how. And he'd feel safe and loved and perfectly right in a way that he never would again.

And maybe if he killed Itachi he would become just like him. Maybe it was what Itachi wanted... and _of course _it was what Itachi wanted... but it was what Sasuke wanted too, and he'd wanted it more then anything. He knew it wasn't right, but he was broken, he was just as fucked up now, Itachi had seen to that. Maybe there just was no other way for him.

Or maybe the final, crushing irony was that Sasuke just _wasn't _as fucked up as Itachi was. He wasn't fucked up enough to save himself from wanting to go back, make his peace. He couldn't just be an emotionless killing machine like Itachi, maybe he finally just didn't _want _to spend his entire life this way. Not when Itachi's death drifted in and out of focus. When Orochimaru just pushed him _so fucking far. _When there was just no point left to anything, after everything Orochimaru had done- and would cheerfully continue doing, for absolute certain... Maybe Sasuke just couldn't make himself that small, petty and sick anymore.

Or maybe, when he was thirty, maybe when he was sitting on trial for deeper charges of treason, maybe then he'd look back and think that he'd been a stupid angry teenager, unwilling to let go of this last childish thing while he still had some chance of judicial pardon. Some people would have toys and picture frames and living relatives. Sasuke would have an empty house and hundreds of bodies and crystalline red memories. Did he need a criminal record too, just to make it all perfectly horrible and complete? Maybe he just couldn't stand to let any of himself come out unscathed. Suicidal, Orochimaru had said. Survivor's guilt.

But it was the best he could think of. He was _not _going back.

And it was definitely what he deserved. He'd walked right into this, thinking he had his eyes wide open. He'd chosen this.

And now he paid. Simple as that.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe Orochimaru had just shaken him so hard that he was forgetting himself. Losing some essential part of himself. Maybe this only felt right, to want to stay here. To prefer this warm house over Orochimaru's cold cinderblock hovels. Maybe Orochimaru would never let him leave. Maybe he was just losing it, finally. Maybe.

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Her own history, too, is difficult.

Hinata was born in the depth of winter, in the darkest time of the year. The sun had disappeared into the winter solstice. The family reverently touched their carved manji and worried that this was an omen. She lacked their crisp icy clarity. She was not a classic Hyuga in body, in face.. and most of all in mind. Her father was less concerned with the fact that she was not a boy. His own mother was the clan head for a glorious twenty years. The stories of her still remained. But Hinata was untalented, dark, born in shadow. The family waited in silence. They waited for her talent to awaken. They waited longer, Hinata thought, then they should have to... while Neji grew stronger. Neji was sure and swift, his mind was crystal clear. He was the Hyuga sun reborn, perfectly formed.

But he was of the lesser house.

Hinata's father belted her across the face. The side of his hand had shifted to solid iron. She fell back, skidded across the polished wooden floor of the dojo.

She looked up and saw the afternoon sunlight cut in slats across his face.

"Useless." he said.

It felt less like a condemnation, like a punishment. To Hinata at that moment it just felt like a statement of fact.

She was useless. To him, and to the Hyuga.

Her mother was pregnant again shortly after that.

Kurenai-sensei came. Hinata waited outside the dojo, and tried to see nothing, hear nothing. Feel nothing. She remembered looking out at the garden. The gardeners were clipping the hedges, and the piercing autumn sun glinted off the edges of the blades. The sheltered paper face of the house was soft and stately against the vivid blue sky. It rose into it, three stories, up to an elaborate weaving of dark stained wood and ceramic tiles. She looked at that, the way the roof poked it's dull nubbed teeth into the clouds, and felt a slow wave of homesickness wash over her. Her father was sending her away. He was all but disowning her. She raised her head and tried not to cry, because she knew that when she bowed her head to him then, it would be for the last time.

And in the end her father did not want to see her, so she didn't get to say goodbye.

She remembered that moment. Loss of family, of house, of name. Loss of her whole world. The ground was no longer solid under her feet. Every guiding star in her world had broken from it's path, and now everything was slowly floating away.

It made her think that she could almost begin to understand how Sasuke felt. Even if she was luckier. Her family went on living, and she found another day much later, when she could gather those broken pieces in her hand and begin to patiently put them back together again.

She wondered if Sasuke wasn't just doing the same thing. Rebuilding.

In her own mind, she was able to take that lost farewell to her father, and transform it into a hint that he was not yet ready to let her go. She was able to move through that opening and start to approach him again. They had never said goodbye, so it was not goodbye, not yet. It was slow, very slow. Her father did not respond easily or quickly. But Hinata kept her hopes alive, and at the bottom of these efforts she found a glimmer of strength. It made her feel that she had some small amount of agency in her family. She was rebuilding. It made her feel like she was the heir. It was the first time she had ever felt that way, like she was part of the Hyuga. Someday it would lie in her hands...

And..

It was slow. It was almost glacial. But something moved in her father's heart. Hidden wheels.. the secret meetings he had with the factions of her family, things that were so high over her head that they may as well have been carried down from the heavens. The Hyuga were warriors that became stars, they burned bright, the lit up the world. They ascended to the sky and formed a perfect constellation, in perfect lines...

Somewhere, her father made his silent decisions. Somewhere, the paperwork was changing hands. Her name was being signed into law. She was named executrix of her father's will in some quiet mystery, one that unfolded entirely without her. She was off in foreign lands. She was protecting Naruto. She was making her stand, divining the direction of his attacker's blood with her eyes and working to turn his forces against him. All of this was far away from her father; but somewhere, as the cold waves of magnetic force danced with terrible force, her father was quietly aligning with her as well.

His reasons would remain mysterious, no matter how close he allowed her to draw.

And sometimes... Hinata had to admit that it did hurt. Her father would turn away. He would dismiss her. She would want his attention so much. She would be holding that last bit of rare affection to her heart. And then there just would be no more. Not today. She would hope for tomorrow, but... well. At least she still had her father. At least he was still alive.

There was still time.

And, in the meantime, Hanabi was growing up. Hanabi had cheered and pumped her fists in the air at the academy graduation. Hinata had stood beside her father and felt him stiffen with disapproval. Hyuga children were meant to be well-mannered and poised in public. Hanabi was jumping around with her friends, their bright little girl voices piercing the stillness of the evening. Hinata had put her hand on her father's arm...

And he had stopped. He hadn't mentioned it to Hanabi later. Hinata had counted a small victory.

And, another time. Another small spot of brightness. She had been teaching for less then a year. Her father had asked her in passing, and she had told him that she planned to teach the children about the advanced bloodlines the next day. She told him that she would show them the byakugan, and she waited for his disapproval.

He did frown. But the next day, as she called the children to the front of the classroom, and knelt down to their eye level; as she formed the seals, and the entire world sprung into high, sharp focus. Beyond her students, their bright cluster of eager springs of chakra, the miniature suns of warmth that bloomed in their bodies, she saw another glimmer. A complex one. Cut and faceted. Diamondlike. Her father, veiled from her eyes but not her sight. He was there to watch her. He had come.

She continued with the lesson, and did not speak to him. She waited for him to come to her, and when he did not, she still carried that warmth with her. She imagined that there had been a smile on his face, that he had been proud of her.

And somewhere, in the midst of that slow change, Hanabi turned her head.

Hanabi had been a quiet child. That was what Hinata had been told. Quiet, obedient and talented- why couldn't Hinata manage the last as well? That was the question posed, held to her, in her white house full of piercing white eyes. Hinata had barely been allowed to see her sister. Not at first. Then Hanabi was just a pale, dark girl, just like her. A smaller version of her, glimpsed across the room, held under her great aunt's arm, being steered and focused...

Hinata still did not understand the way these battle lines formed in her house. These lines of separation.

But even as a small frightened child, she felt them. She saw Hanabi through a dark mirror, herself as she could have been. She wondered if Hanabi was as miserable as she was, and then...

..as the high family council relaxed their grip, Hanabi was there with her. They were able to have tea together. They were sitting in terse silence, Hinata, Neji and Hanabi. She saw the bruises on her sister's frail arm from training, and saw the look in her eyes and _knew _that Hanabi was miserable. But not like Hinata herself was. Hanabi was angry.

It was strange, Hinata thought. They both shared the quiet desperation of their ornate cage. But where Hinata bowed her head and subsided into silent depression, Hanabi snatched up her kunai and prepared herself to fight.

It made Hinata wonder what her sister was fighting for, if not for her family and her house. If not for their father. But Hanabi carried her secret motives behind her angry pout. And Neji vanished behind the prismatic blur of his eyes. Both of them were hidden, parts of them were just out of Hinata's reach. But she felt them close at hand, beside her. Hanabi plopped herself down at Hinata's elbow when they attended dinner together. And she could believe that someday she would reach for Neji, and he would be there.

But, for the moment.. all she had was that promise of time. At least she still had it.

Hinata sighed. She was in the tatami rooms of the main floor now, cushions gathered at her feet. The places where the family elders met. Where Hanabi had refused to sit properly, just a month ago. Their father had eventually had her dragged from the room. Hinata could probably find that cushion, the one with the maple leaves embroidered on it's slick surface. The one that Hanabi had kicked at their father, striking him in the face with surprising accuracy.

...her sister was so strong. Fierce. She would rise and fight again, no matter what happened. Her sister had begun to defy the will of the family elders.. and.. somewhere along the line, Hanabi had turned from their father. She said nothing, that was to be expected. But Hinata caught the sly little glares of distain Hanabi aimed at their father's back, little glittering senbon whistling through the air. The way she rolled her eyes, and she didn't smile when he spoke of her. She didn't even raise her head, she'd just push her teacup around with her fingertips. When their father would tell her to stop fidgeting, she'd look at him in a blank, sullen way.

And Hanabi drew closer to Hinata. As if she'd had chosen her side, finally.

Hinata knew that their father _must _know this, he must feel the current of unspoken anger in the air. But he said nothing.

He trained Neji. He trained Hinata.

Hanabi began to refuse to train with him.

"Speak to your sister," their father said to Hinata, stiffly.

Nothing more was said about the matter.

And the currents of silence and lines drawn remained. The house of secrets and light.

But. It was strange in and of itself, her family and it's house. It was built like a dream, perfect in every way, but inside it was a nightmare. It was artificial and unreal, but it was still the only reality she had. It was her only world. It took her months away in warmer, greener places with her team to fully understand just how strange it was. Kiba's family, with their house full of barking dogs and running paws, sloppy tongues and rough affection. Shino's parents, their calm dignity and the relaxed sureness of the love they had for him. Hinata could feel it, see it, when Shino's mother curled down the cowl of his jacket with one hand, kissed his cheek.

Her family did nothing of the sort. There was no touching. There were no kisses.. certainly not in public. Never before strangers, at that. Hinata stood to Shino's side and twisted her hands with embarrassment. Her family just was not like this.

But maybe she and Hanabi and Neji were a new kind of Hyuga. Maybe they can change things, together. Hinata had her secret dreams of joining their hands. She had her own private feeling towards the crest stitched into her back. A morning sun, a new day. Not just a rigorous, lifeless golden standard of excellence.

She believed that. It made her want to hold on. Maybe she and Neji could be different. Maybe she really _could _change the house. She'd spoken without thinking. Her heart had gotten it's way and spilled it's desires.. but she did want it. She wasn't sure how she could get there. But she wanted it.

And she wanted him.

Sasuke. There for a moment. Alive for a moment. Due to vanish back into the night, and Hinata would tear the sheets from her bed, Miya would gather the clothes that he'd worn, the traces of blood, and they'd burn them in the incinerator. Hinata would turn her back on the flames, she'd have to run back to her room to wipe Sasuke's fingerprints from her windowsill, because her father's eyes were just that sharp. She'd spend a few hours completely destroying ever visible hint of him, so that he could pass through unnoticed. And the ANBU would not darken the door. She'd pause at the shrine in the yard, and scatter water. She'd wish for his safety, and know that it lay well out of her hands.

A few hours, maybe only a day or two, that they would have together. Brief even by the uncertain lives of ninja.. and her house and it's secure lines of blood had taught her to nod her head to the warnings of sudden death, but secretly expect to live long and have her own family, her own husband who wouldn't turn away from her the way her father turned from her mother. Her own children who would not know the loneliness that she had. She really did like him, and maybe it would have been love.. she could picture loving him. She could even begin to imagine the feeling of his love in return, and it was so hard to put a time limit on that. Even if it was all there was, this time. And even if there was no time to be wasted with idle thoughts, she had to prepare herself to see him. They had to take action..

She had to decide. She wanted him, but she didn't just want his attention, or his warm hands, or whatever they could give one another of their bodies. Even if that would be easier, to just give themselves that simple, natural completion. She could do that.. she would _not _cry, she told herself sternly, and wiped away the hint of tears. She was a kunoichi. She had been taught to use her body in many ways. It was not just a gift to be given to her husband in the future, if she would ever have one.

She was only eighteen. She _would _have one. She would.

Nothing was ever truly over, or lost, not while her house still stood, and her family still lived.

And she had paced the entire house, run her fingers through all these thoughts and memories. She'd only touched upon them, distractedly worried and too shaken to face them clearly. Sasuke still hadn't appeared, so maybe he really was on the roof. And she was halfway up the final flight of stairs when Miya caught her arm.

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Ghosts with pinwheeling eyes. The first time, he startled, and realized only a moment later that it was his reflection caught in a mirror, hidden in the darkness. He didn't know the house well enough. The Hyuga liked to place these mirrors at the ends of halls, suggesting a whole other wing to the house, reflecting back behind the glass.

The second time, he felt the mirror with his fingertips, saw the shadow reflection of his own hand, and knew it was nothing.

But now he was upstairs, having found a long passageway full of paper walls that smelled just a bit older and dustier. Inside those rooms was stale air, no traces of recent use. The sharingan could not help him, but it reassured him. There was no enemy to conserve chakra for, he kept it in place.

And at the end of the passage was a long flight of stairs. Constructed strangely, twisted onto itself, as if made as an afterthought, an escape from the upper floor. And when he arrived, soft light parted out of the darkness. He saw rice paper walls glow like huge lanterns, each containing one tiny flame. He glimpsed the traces of red. He grit his teeth and dug his fingernails into the side of his neck.

_No. _It was just an empty house. Hinata was here, somewhere. He was sure he sensed her.

She had a lightweight presence. A silent snowfall. A held breath, nothing more then that, but he was certain he felt her near.

So, the third time, when he was certain he caught that flash of red, something more intense and piercing then the warm reds of the sunken candle flames...

...it had to be his imagination. Shadows leaping out him. His own heart overworking, pressing too much blood into his veins. He leaned against the cold outer wall, felt the storm vibrating though it.

There were footsteps up here, though. There were little feet. Soft, silent. There was that persistent hint of redness, just dancing outside of his field of vision. As if Itachi moved to stalk and strike for him- _no, that wasn't it, _he was just losing it, losing his fucking _shit _over nothing more then a fucking _power outage, _carrying on like a pathetic little child. He had to restrain himself from putting his fist through that glowing paper wall.

And the little feet continued. Moving in the darkness, all around. Whiskers at his ankles.

Cats. He exhaled, shakily.

He often wondered, anyway... what would have happened if he hadn't opened the wooden double doors to his parents' bedroom? Would Itachi have come upon him silently, chosen to just cut him down with everyone else? Sasuke imagined the wet blood on the edge of Itachi's blade, and shivered.. and wished that it could have been true. He would not be here now, if it had been. He wouldn't be all alone, he wouldn't be feeling like this.

He pictured Itachi sneaking into his bedroom, coming upon him turned over in bed, his face pushed into the pillow. Sleeping on his stomach, which he never did. But he couldn't handle the idea of meeting that wet blade with his throat, he wanted Itachi to hack through his spine first, kill him quickly.

And he would be just one more Uchiha ghost. He would have no burden. It would be better then this, then life in general..

And the cat feet moved, sensing another presence. Sasuke felt it too, his feet snapped into the ready position, bracing himself. He heard the heaviness of those feet, too heavy to be Hinata. Too sure, precise to be the old woman with her sideways hobble. No, they were heavy. Workboots. _Itachi. _Traces of red, fourth time, eyes coming out of the darkness, pinwheel red and it was _not_ his imagination. A hall full of paper and oil and wood, tiny lit flames, and Sasuke would blast those walls down, he'd see them erupt in flames, seconds and heartbeats away, as his hands formed the seals, he drew in his breath, _Katon-_

Hands of iron on his mouth, prying apart his hands. Pinned to the wall, effortlessly. _Itachi. _He struggled- hands came out of the darkness. Slapped him across the face. Light coming. Dark eyes. The gleam of a forehead protector, and behind it young faces, women's fringed eyelashes casting spidery shadows against smooth cheeks.

"You _snap out of it!" _the old woman hissed. A crack of her hand across his face. Hard. Harder then she should be able to hit. _"Stop it!"_

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Miya caught her on the stairs. Hinata turned, and for a moment she didn't recognize the hardness of Miya's hand.

Then she saw the gleam of metal at her forehead. And Hinata relaxed from her tense, halted spring up the steps. But it was still confusing. The family retainers, the ones who stood guard personally over herself and Hanabi, they didn't show this part of themselves. She'd only seen it once before, on the night her mother died. She turned to face Miya, and said "But.. you only wear that-"

"To show loyalty." Miya said. She was rushed. Hinata saw Kimiko behind her, and the whisper of Momoe's feet down the hall.

She blinked, confused. "But, it's just a-"

"No." Miya said. She gently pulled Hinata down to the step she stood on. Then, slowly, step by step, down to the foot of the stairs.

"Go find the boy." Miya said, and Kimiko and Momoe slipped away. Hinata waited, frowning in consternation, wondering why, surely it couldn't be... but...

"The family will be returning tomorrow evening." Miya said. And Hinata knew.

"My great aunt?" she said finally, closing her lips on the slight gasp. It was coming, much of her family was old. "Or.. my grandfather?" There were many older relatives who could have passed. It could be any of them.. and Miya just looked up at her, the candlelight tracing the gleaming metal lines of the carved leaf. "I sent the letter with Kimiko. You haven't read it?"

Hinata remembered it, she had thought it was from the academy. "I... well, no.."

And Miya had no time for shyness or excuses, she was already pulling Hinata's jacket open. "Pull up your shirt." she ordered, and Hinata did hesitate, finally, lost as to what was happening.

"But.." she whispered.

"Read it in the morning." Miya said. She pressed Hinata to the wall, and Hinata was shocked enough, caught by surprise, her feet had just slipped back. And now Miya was forming seals over her. There was no time for Hinata to speak, the chakra flared and cut. And sealed...

Miya's hand pressed to the bare skin between her breasts. Hard against the bone. Something hot under it, branded deeply. Hinata couldn't speak, and Miya said sternly "You can't stay in this house. We're already sealing it. I need you to go to the hidden cottage in the east. Stay there, you'll be safe."

There was no time for argument. There was a death.. Hinata knew that, she remembered. They were sealing the house to protect the family from attacks... other clans who would hear of the loss, and seize this moment of weakness.

Miya zipped her up again and Hinata didn't open her jacket to look, not even after she'd run out into the storm, torn through the east garden, pushed through the snowy fur trees and had forced the lock. She leaned against the inside of the door, listened to her heart pound in her ears.

She didn't have to look. She knew what it was.

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It took a minute. The genjutsu was woven tight. All he could feel was strong hands on his wrists, the old woman's hand jammed against his mouth, his head pushed back hard into the wall.

The candles faded in. Not the tiny red ones, but the ones they carried, the old woman and her two older girls. The girls held him, their iron hands were sealed gloves, treated with chakra leeches. The old woman held her hand to his face long after the fire had died on his lips, and he _hated _it, but he was distracted, why the hell was she wearing the leaf? The forehead protector, and the girls did as well. He could imagine that the girls may have been ninjas, they were young enough. But the old woman... pressed and immobilized, impossibly so, he watched her. Her movements were different now.. completely different. The wrinkles seemed to have eased from her face. He watched her hands zip through a complex jutsu that he couldn't follow, he just didn't know enough yet, this was something that he'd never even seen Orochimaru do, and...

..finally, she took her hand from his mouth.

"Ready?" she said. Her voice, too, was iron. Focused. The candlelight gleamed in her eyes.

"You're a jounin." he finally mumbled, embarrassed to have been fooled so easily, caught in his own preconceptions. Genjutsu for her hobble, for her face.. all of it to disguise her true nature.

"I'm a Hyuga family retainer," she said brusquely. "Do you think Hinata's father would leave her unguarded? Now, calm down and stop fussing like a fool. What have you done to your hands?" She had his cut hand now, seized in her own tight fingers. The girls held their candle flames close. Sasuke snatched his hand away.

"I'm.. _fine." _he hissed. And then tried to make it seem less frantic. "Really. I'm fine." he added, awkwardly, trying to level his voice out.

She just arched one dubious eyebrow, her sharp eyes held him fast, even though the girls had released him. "Go seal the front doors." the old woman said to them, tilting her eyes briefly their way. And they melted away.

"You were under genjutsu." she said to him, and he had to stop himself from rolling his eyes, because was just so fucking damn _obvious._

But the anger was brittle. The humiliation of this.. it couldn't shield him. There was a dangerous quiver in the back of his throat. He didn't trust himself to speak.. and, a few moments later, the old woman made him sit down on the tatami mats. She poured water from a stone pitcher set on the low tables at his feet. She made him drink, and he fought to keep his hands from shaking.

That recent, sharp, intense sense of horror, breathing down his neck... The body couldn't know any better then the mind, and the mind was fully convinced by the false realness of the illusion. Itachi was not there, but he may as well be, for the echoes of him which still crept around just outside those paper walls. The candles still burned, Sasuke could see their faint glow, transmuted through leaves of stretched paper.

He smelled alcohol before he could look up to watch her hands.

"Sake?" he muttered hopefully.

"Scotch." she said. "Looks like you had a pretty good fright. That fire jutsu would have taken the whole wing out. Burned it down in a flash." She poured shots, he saw the candlelight linger on the heavy rim of the shot glasses.

Even better. Getting drunk suddenly seemed like a decent idea. He watched her hands, which still hadn't returned to their decrepit illusion. Her fingers were achingly nimble. And soon the glass was in his hand. Her hand was warm on his shoulder.

"It won't happen again." she said. In a way that made him believe she knew what she was talking about.

"Hinata's fine." she said. "We're just sealing the house. She's been sent away. There's been a death in the family."

His own breath sounded too shaky to him, too close to a sob. He closed his throat down around it, held himself in check. It would be so easy to just shove her away, refuse this bit of comfort. Remember that he didn't like her, and he really didn't. He didn't. Easy... and the storm was just a subconscious wisp of white noise, now, the faint hiss of his own blood rushing through his veins, his heartbeat coming down from that dizzy peak. The cold air moved over the floor and nipped at his bare feet.

"Maybe now you want to tell me what's wrong." she said.

Her bony ribs pressed against him. He could feel the old muscle in her arm, taut and still strong, even if she was frail and short compared to him. He couldn't match that lifetime of skill. He couldn't _believe _he'd failed to see through it.. he couldn't believe the speed of her hands as she formed the jutsu to cut the illusion, tear it right out of him.

Her hands. Precise with that needle, warm on his shoulder. Stripping Orochimaru's fingers from his throat, wiping Itachi out of his mind, if only for one moment. Itachi being Orochimaru's trump card, his favorite illusion.

"I've raised seventeen children." the old woman said. "I've seen lots and lots of messed up kids. Especially in _this _house, with what goes on here..." she snorted. Her arm was tightly around him. The candles whispered all around them, soft voices of flame.

Silence. Waiting for him to push her away. Push away the helping hand that reached for him. Like he always did. So he could go back to Orochimaru, to pain and fear and recrimination. To Itachi, endlessly building bridges to Itachi. The logic coming apart in his hands, because he just wasn't twelve anymore. He couldn't lie to himself, lose himself in this anger, not with the same purity of intent. His hand weeping blood in his lap, eleven years of this now. Emptiness. Hatred. Itachi never coming close. Orochimaru coming too close now, breathing down Sasuke's neck. Coming to take everything he had, finally. To prove that Sasuke hadn't lost _everything, _not just yet. Not until now.

"I'm in trouble." he whispered. The glass tipped to the floor, heavy in his hand.

Her voice was rough and close in the semi-darkness, her throat wet with the alcohol.

"I'll bet you are." He didn't look up, but he felt her sharp eyes on him. "Good thing you've got a large and powerful family to help you out." she said.

He looked up at her, glaring angrily, wondering if that was some sort of disgusting joke.

But he was worn out from rage and fear and recrimination and sorrow. He drank the entire shot, felt it burn hard down his throat. Thought vaguely of breathing fire, katon in reverse. "My family is dead." he said, finally. His voice felt like a flat, dead weight.

And to his surprise, the old woman had nothing to say to that. She just stared through the walls, into the distant smudges of flame. She poured him another shot, and he drank that too. One long cool breath of fire. When he lowed the glass, his head was just starting to spin a little bit.

"Your ancestors are here." the old woman said.

His breathing sounded wet and ragged, even to himself. He closed his eyes. He felt the tears pricking, and bowed his head, his hair falling down.

"My family is dead." he said, again, whispering to try to keep his voice level.

He wasn't looking at her, he was too lost in himself to listen for her or monitor what she was doing. He heard her voice say "You read the book I sent to you?" And he put the pieces together, but it was all useless as always. Nothing was going to change. He'd seen those letters.

"Her father would never allow it." He swallowed hard. Tried to clear his throat. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

"Hmph. Well, luckily for you the Hyuga clan is currently under new management."

He didn't even know what she was talking about. It sounded like inter-clan political bullshit of some kind. He didn't care. He didn't fucking care. He told her so. "I don't care about that." he said. "I can't find Hinata."

"You couldn't find your own hand in front of your face, not with genjutsu like that." The old woman's voice was gruff. He reached for the bottle again. She moved it out of his reach.

"That's 80 proof. We'd have to carry you out of here."

Like he fucking _cared. _

He didn't want to go back to Orochimaru. Not when Orochimaru's hand was just wrapping tighter and tighter around his throat, and the walls were closing in.

Not that he had a choice. Nothing was going to save him, nothing could, Sasuke knew that. But he knew six years of hard, backbreaking effort, letting Orochimaru use him in _every _way. Gaining power, getting stronger, but none of it making any difference. Itachi was still no closer. Kakashi.. fucking _Kakashi, _asshole! Fuck Kakashi for being _right. _For not stopping him. For not trying to. For letting him fuck this up so badly...

"Easy." The old woman said sternly. Her hand tightened on his shoulder. "Breathe... _no, _no more scotch for you, you've had enough."She took the glass too, pulling it from his limp, apathetic bleeding hand, bloody fingerprints on the rim.

Not that there was _any way back. _Not that it mattered.

"Hinata is fine." the old women said. And then, close to his ear "It will _never _happen again, do you understand me? I will not watch it happen again."

He shuddered and tried to pull away, but she had him too tightly, her fingers pressed into points of chakra in his wrist. Then she pressed others, trying to pull heat back into him, stop him from shivering. "You'll catch your death," she muttered. "..hold still.." More jutsus, stripping the water from him. The candle flame moved, shoved aside by the currents of energy moving suddenly through the cooling air.

She gave him the key. She sent him with one of those servant girls, and Sasuke numbly watched as she cast a perfect suiton around them, the wind and ice drenching the water sphere as they walked across the wet snow.

The girl knelt and removed some sort of concealment jutsu, one that Sasuke had seen before, but not used like this. The heavy, snow-laden evergreens branches parted, and he followed her to the little paper tea cottage beyond. There was firelight in the windows.

And Hinata was there. He could feel her energy, just beyond the door.

He looked behind him. The girl had veiled, pulling herself into the storm. And now frozen rain hammered at his back. He turned back, lay one cold hand against the oak door. His other hand drifted to the latch. But it opened in front of him. He felt the slow backwash of heat, first. Then Hinata's soft, warm hands taking his. He blinked, and found her eyes. He'd missed her. He hadn't realized how much he missed her. Lost in all these old nightmares, most of them still in progress... but maybe if he could just forget, just for a minute.

"Come in.." she whispered, her hands curled around his. Pulling him into the heat, the warm darkness, the firelight.

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A/N: There were several grievous grammatical tense errors in the first draft that I (accidentally) shoved online. Those have been (hopefully mostly) corrected. But I always miss a few. I'll get them all eventually.

Random fact: while scribbling this chapter, I had the songs 'Disintegration' by The Cure and 'Do It Again' by Steely Dan stuck in my head. The first is more appropriate. This monstrosity of a chapter came out just like it- over-long, messy, visceral, slightly hysterical and completely impervious to pruning.

Thanks mucho to everyone for reading and sticking with me so far.

Oh, and I don't own _Naruto. _I always forget the disclaimers.


	9. Absolution

_Your grandfather was a good and honest man. He was a good friend to my grandfather. But the Hyuga clan headship has degenerated in modern times. Your father was a criminal. Your sons will be criminals. The documents cited testify that you are a criminal as well. Your clan is not above the law. _

- 08 September, Uchiha Fugaku

_We would not even have you in the branch house now, you no longer know your place or understand the sacred order of the clan. It is most telling how you imagine you can challenge me, when I am your moral superior by blood. It pains me to see the Uchiha clan sink so low. I had thought that you could not sink lower. I invite you to therefore face life and destiny fully without our support. When you need us, and I assure you that you will, we will grant your wish of being entirely without us. My children will not be criminals, but yours will face the world alone._

- 10 September, Hyuga Hiashi

The letters remained in the dark sealed house behind him. Sasuke had only glanced at them. But he had seen enough.

The letter. The other one, for Hinata. It's sharp paper corner was digging into his ribs. The old woman had pressed it into his hand.

-----------------------------------------------------------

The seal was warm and prickly under Hinata's skin.

It was not _really _a caged bird seal. It was not a curse, it was protection. Even the hidden house, with it's paper tea cottage facade and it's deeper rooms hidden in ringed jutsus, lines of trees, a silent maze of heavy snow-laded evergreens, their branchs hanging low to the snowbanks and dropped needles, the seals woven into the paper and wood. All of it was aligned in geomancy. Even the scatter of pinecones, tended by the gardeners to look random, when they formed a watchful pattern. All of it was meant to hold her, the Hyuga heir. This seal was just the final touch to hold the bloodline limit.

She remembered the canaries and finches that were kept in the solarium, When the servants put their gold wire cages out in summer, the birds tended to remain near. They had their patterns of flying. They would sit in favorite places in the covered garden, on ornate ironwork, pale yellow luminescent in the sun. They would always return to their cage. That was their place of refuge, where they felt safe.

It was a caged bird seal. This was all an elaborate golden cage to hold her and keep her safe. But she couldn't feel Neji's rage. She felt mostly tired. And relieved. It was easier not to be angry, her weakness served her well sometimes. Hinata felt safer, too, after Kimiko brought Sasuke to her. She didn't know if she was worried for him, or for herself. But she felt better as soon as she locked the door behind him, and he was there, the small foyer was full of his sharp, unstable energy.

The seal burned as Sasuke's hand accidentally brushed against it, when she stood up on her tiptoes to try to fit her smaller arms around him. She felt a faint quiver go through him. He turned slightly away, but she saw tears frozen on his face. She let him wipe them away without drawing attention to them.

He wanted a moment to compose himself, so she opened the doors to the small training room, a clean cedar box cut into a underground pocket of hard clay. She had lit candles in there, too. She left him in peace. She want back to sit near the fire.

Fate... It had taken one of her relatives, now. The wheel of the world gave, and it took away. Maybe it gave her Sasuke, these few moments with him, in return for the loss of one of those Hyuga stars.

Now another would have to rise to take it's place, the line would have to remain unbroken. Tradition dictated that Hinata would be in the tatami rooms now, in the main house. She would be sitting with the family councils. They would be reading from the family's scrolls, and she would be fitting her fingers into the traditional seals of meditation. She would be imagining that string of bright stars, the ones she had pictured since childhood. She would be trying to imagine herself as a part of it. But the main house was sealed. The family was not here to cast circles of light and protection around her. But even without their actual presence, she felt their echo. Her family with all it's flaws and it's cruelties still built an impervious place of safety. It's considerable power would all align, close ranks, just to shield her, the would-be heir. The only heir they had, for the moment.

She found herself assuming that it was her great aunt, a strict and particularly demanding woman who's taut, hard hand was all but branded onto Hinata's cheek, by now, even after the livid redness of the slaps had faded.

Hinata tried to feel some sorrow for the loss.. and failed, sighing. Was it tempting fate to think that way.. that one of the high council with their ringing condemning voices was gone? Maybe it was. But she had to admit to herself that she really hadn't liked her great aunt at all. She hadn't.

Sasuke was quiet. She could hear nothing from the down the paper-lined hallway. When she stared into the fire and used her byakugan to see through the walls, discretely avoid looking right at him, she saw no flicker of motion from the candle glow. He was resting. Thinking. She wondered if she should go to him, and decided that it would be best to let him come to her. Or, at least, to give him a bit more time.

Her family would be back tomorrow. _The Family, _she wanted to say instead, since it was more like an establishment then something that belonged to her. Especially the parts of it that would be at the fore. It would be the highest of the Hyuga councils that spoke now, as Hinata and everyone else felll silently into line. The funeral would have to be organized. Hinata would have to stand beside her father, bow her head. Show respect.

But as an hour wore on, the evening sinking into deep night, finally, and midnight nearing, she got up. She went down to the lower level, cut deeper below ground. The chill here was subterranean, it may have actually been warmer then the snow and ice storms raging at the surface. And here, too, it was silent. The storm could murmur at the edges of the upper hidden floor, but here it was lost and silenced completely. She found an old copper kettle in the kitchen and hung it over the fire to heat some light cream. She made hot chocolate, infusing it with mint leaves the way Momoe did. Momoe had a talent for making sweets.

She poured the steaming liquid into two glossy black porcelain mugs. She carried one to Sasuke, parting the paper doors and stealing over the polished wooden floor silently, on her tracker's feet.

He was sitting in the far corner, just barely touched by the candlelight. It edged the dark scatter of his hair as it fell into his face, his pale hand where he lay it open on his folded knee. There was a dark crust of blood arcing over his open palm. His eyes were closed, though he didn't sit in a traditional meditation posture, and Hinata could feel the alert energy from him.

She left it without comment, not wanting to intrude. She did this in lieu of putting her hand on his shoulder, touching him, trying to hug him again. A silent show of support, after he had shown her his language of such things.

The cat was probably still filching bits of fish from her abandoned dinner tray, but it was the principle of the thing.

She wondered if she should go to him, but the gesture made, she sat still to master her nervousness and waited for his answer, whatever it would be. The fire crackled, and lulled her thoughts away. She found herself pausing on a brief memory of her father. She was fourteen. He had taken her into the main district of the village. They had come from a meeting with the Hokage, and Hinata had been flushed and happy with the honor of accompanying him. They had paused in the square. Her father had bought them red beancakes from a vendor. As they sat in silence, and the warm summer breeze stirred lazily in the folds of her skirt, Hinata had watched her father scatter crumbs for the birds. Grey pigeons with white-tipped wings, their quick beaks shiny with greyed pink and purple; crows crouching and focused like sharp black darts, all of them gathered at his feet. One of the crows had perched on the end of Hinata's sandal just for a moment to snatch a crumb. She'd felt the brief touch of it's clawed foot. And the sun had gleamed in her father's long dark hair, edging fine shadow around the elegant thoughtful creases just starting to form in his face. His eyes had almost seemed pale jade, faint blue, as if picking up the colors of the sky and lush summer willow trees. Hinata had lingered over the details, knowing that moments like this would end, and maybe never come again. She had to hold them tight.

Her most recent memory of him was under a steel-grey wintery morning sky. He had been distracted, barely looking at her, one hand pressed slightly to his chest as he talked about Neji.

Sasuke reappeared, silently as the distant hint of snow and ice hanging in the air. She felt him step into the room. She looked over her shoulder, and saw the firelight wash over his pale face, another of Neji's shirts hanging half-open, a tiny lick of shadow marking the deep wound in his side. She tried to smile for him. She managed it, and then thought that maybe it was unnecessary. But his dark eyes softened slightly. He bent to pick up her empty mug, as if he intended to take them both back to the kitchen. Hinata held her breath, and reached up. She caught the long edge of his open sleeve, the starched buttons, and held it.

He knelt down beside her. Her eyes were closed, but she felt him come close, leaning in as if he wanted to touch her, but didn't yet dare. She licked her lips nervously, and tightened her hand on his sleeve.

"Hinata," It was nothing more then an intake of breath.

"Sasuke-kun." she whispered, acknowledging him by name, finally. She had known his name because everyone in the academy knew it. He must have heard hers from the staff. But they had never been formally introduced, never called one another by name, not until this moment. Acknowledging one another finally, as if one another had finally become real. That knowing one another fully would have consequences. At least, Hinata felt that way. She felt that she was changing, subtly, just from knowing him. To pretend that he was still a stranger, that she could burn everything he'd touched and forget him, and that her life would continue unbroken...

Well. It wouldn't work now. Maybe you couldn't play with these kinds of feelings. You couldn't control them, plan for them, shut them on and off so they'd fit into your ordered life.

She wondered if he felt the same. She promised herself she'd ask him. But she had to think of the words. And she had reached out to stroke his cheek, and in doing so opened her eyes, seen the twinge of anguish settled into the tension in his brow, in the edge of his lips. All those tiny muscles knotted against pain. She touched him, stroked his hair back gently. He moved his hand to the floor beside her, balancing himself so that he could lean closer, just almost touch her. So that he could feel her warmth but still have a sliver of firelight between their bodies. Permission, thought Hinata. He was waiting for permission.

She put her arms around him, meaning to be gentle. But his breath caught slightly, his fingers clenched at the loose edge of her jacket, body language that screamed _hold me _and _no, don't _at once. And _if you want _and _please, _and _you don't have to. _Her body responded, knowing and certain. And she hugged him fiercely close, hunching her small frame around his bowed head, the heavy defeated slump of his shoulders. The scruff of his hair brushed against her chin, damp and sleek.

The storm retreated further behind the silence. The firelight moved, licking over his back, the hand that she braced under his shoulder blade. She could hear the shakiness in each breath he took, but otherwise he was silent. He rested his head in the hollow of her neck. His hands were around her waist now, his tense fingers clenching at the fabric. She stroked his shoulder very gently, feartherlight, through the thick woven linen, Neji's pressed white shirt. Holding her breath, she carefully lay that hand on the back of his neck, nudging the tension there with minute presses of her fingertips. His hands tightened, and his arms pulled her closer. She let her head fall back slightly, feeling his lips brush her throat. She let herself breathe slowly. She exhaled in a long, slow sigh.

The silence at that moment, it's exact quality of warm darkness, edged with the fire's light, it was suddenly perfect. She didn't speak, or even breathe too loudly, and she knew that he would not either. She dared to touch him a bit more, stroke the back of his neck in small soothing circles. She felt the warm waters welling, gentle rivers moving along the lower spirals of chakra in her lower back, her thighs. The next breath, as he closed his lips gently over a little pinch of flesh on her neck, feathered out from her lips, almost out loud. Almost...

Almost. But she laid her hand on his shoulder, and stopped.

They had discussed nothing. They barely knew one another. Nature would take it's course, she could see that. And then.. Well, he would leave. She would conceal the entire incident. And she was prepared to do that, so... So. This was about something else.

She didn't think he was a malicious person. He said he liked her, she believed him. Maybe he only liked her in a momentary kind of way. It wouldn't be that unusual.. at least, from what Hinata knew of other people's affairs. He wanted her as a warm body for a night, to be soundly forgotten thereafter. She found herself biting at the edge of her lips to keep quiet, not let on that she felt this way.. thinking that maybe after this he would not remember her name. Or, at least, should he survive, he would not so much as look at her again. And maybe that was for the best, with her family and his legal status. But it wasn't exactly romantic. She liked him, wanted him, but not like this. And in the moment that she hesitated, wondering how she could keep him from noticing her change of mood, explain it to him, she saw that he had already noticed.

She exhaled, slowly, feeling him loosen his arms, raise his head, his hair brushing against her cheek as she lowered hers, and opened her eyes. He was just pushing the unruly hair out of his eyes. Then he looked at her with a mixture of calm, resignation. "What is it?" he said, his voice level and normal, now, as if nothing had happened.

Hinata bit her lip, felt her own face fall, struggling to find the words to explain herself. She didn't mean to drop her gaze, but did, and a moment later felt his hand gently curling under her chin, raising her face to look at him again. "It's all right." he said, in a way that was clearly meant to comfort her. "What's wrong?"

Nothing.

She scuttled off to the kitchen, mumbling an excuse about being hungry.

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In the room that Hinata had shown him, Sasuke had watched the candles. Thought about power.

It's nature. What he'd wanted. He wasn't like Orochimaru- or Orochimaru's various pawns. He didn't love it for it's own sake, he-

_All right, _he liked it. He enjoyed being powerful. It was much better then being power_less_, and being subject to the cruel whims of the powerful. It was a straight line calculus. The powerful abused the powerless. Simple.

Not that he liked it, but the world didn't care what he liked or wanted. It just _was. _

But he wasn't in love with it. He didn't live to use others. He didn't get a sick thrill out of it. He wanted it to get Itachi, punish him, destroy him.. so many reasons.. all the same thing, in the end. He balanced his breathing, closing his eyes, focusing on the perfect symmetry of that goal. It wasn't the power itself, it was just a means to an end.

Orochimaru had been a Leaf ninja, he had deserted the village to find his own higher goals. Itachi, too, had been born in Konoha, and claimed to outgrow it. That had been Sasuke's reasoning. To kill Itachi, he must follow the same path.

Of course. Itachi had also 'outgrown' his family, and killed them.

Which may have been the first clue that this wasn't a good idea... that Sasuke might have gone too far... that maybe there just was no way to ever make it better again.

So there was nothing to do, now, but sigh in the quiet cold air, the closed paper room, it's two flickering candles. It sounded very loud to him. He promptly shut his mouth and quieted completely.

And in a moment, his thoughts could move again, freely, in the space of silence.

Orochimaru and Itachi both fell in love with power...strength. Immortality for Orochimaru, a life without limits for Itachi. They threw away everything else in their headlong pursuit.

Sasuke had toddled after them, as if he was an eternal worshipful seven year old, tugging on Itachi's pantleg, begging for one more lesson. You bargained everything you had for power, and maybe you saw your fortunes rise. Clearly the wicked prospered. But it was a lie. Sasuke knew this now. The cost was just too high. Hatred never got you off the ground, it just sucked you down into it. It was no mystery why he was here, now, six years later. Stronger, a better fighter to be certain, educated in all kinds of vile jutsu... but lost, sickened, feeling like what little foundation he'd had was crumbling from beneath him. It all just turned into emptiness in the end.

Made sense, he told himself morosely. What had Kakashi said? Hatred destroys you. It leaves you with nothing.

And Kakashi had also said that true power and strength came from the desire to protect the good things you had rather then toss them away for a cheap rush of superiority and sneering misanthropy. Sasuke raised one hand, forgot that it was cut until he rubbed at his eyes with it, felt the little wounds reopen. He brushed the flakes of crusted blood from his cheeks.

Figured that Kakashi was right.

Figured that he'd just _had _to learn the hard way.

Figured, also, that he'd had to be taken away from Orochimaru's inner circle to even see what was what. Orochimaru kept him off balance, blinded. Of _fucking course, _it wasn't like Orochimaru ever intended to follow through, was it?

Six years. Feeling Itachi moving behind the scenes, imagining Itachi hidden behind every nonsensical little drama Orochimaru stirred up. Getting stronger, getting faster and his chakra levels skyrocketing, but still, Itachi moved farther and higher. Itachi moved faster, Sasuke tracked him but Itachi always slipped through his fingers.

Meeting Itachi once- _once!- _in the Wave Country, the place of his awakened sharingan; catching Itachi's scent and realising too late that he had been set up. Rushing headlong, his sword out and his heart in his throat, Itachi beating him so badly that they'd had to carry him back to Otokagure in pieces.

_It's not a toy, _Itachi remarked calmly, yanking Sasuke's broken wrist with one hand, raising Sasuke's sword with the other.

Sasuke knew he was very, _very _fast with that blade but he just wasn't fast enough.

And he'd never be. Itachi was faster. Itachi was stronger. Sasuke could train his fingers to the bone for the rest of his life and Itachi would always be ahead of him, always, always, always, _always!_

So he lost it in Otokagure, took it out on Orochimaru's experimental subjects. Took it out on Kabuto, once Kabuto had surgically reattached his hands and linked up the chakra flow again. Took it out on Orochimaru, deserting Sound at the crucial moment of body transfer, leading the Four on a wild chase through three countries and back. Orochimaru almost killed him for that, but it was worth it.

Six years.

After that little drama, Orochimaru strung him up and smacked him around for a while. But physical punishment just wasn't effective, not when being beaten to a pulp by Orochimaru was basically a normal training day for Sasuke. Orochimaru moved to psychological tactics, withholding being one of his favorites, and Sasuke grit his teeth and endured, and eventually Orochimaru grew bored with punishment for the transgression, and settled into his new body. Almost three years to this day, now, Orochimaru stroking Sasuke's hair with his new hands, purring about how Sasuke always felt the same, but how it would have to be different with each new body, how he just had to see what it was like. Life went on, as it was. Orochimaru seemed to change his focus slightly, start to enjoy the game for it's own sake. Orochimaru settled in for a long seduction, gathering his coils around Sasuke for the next time. The next time that would be coming very soon, in only a few months. The three years were almost up.

So... maybe the timing made sense. Orochimaru was gearing up for his next big game. Send Sasuke away, then slowly seduce him back.

He was just losing himself in that blind alley of suspicion when Hinata parted the door.

His thoughts stopped, and he held his breath unconsciously, watching the silent, elegant way she moved. It was mesmerizing. She left a hot cup of something- coffee?- at his feet and disappeared as quickly as she had come.

And he remembered. He wanted to be near her.

He just had so much darkness and hate and noise in his head. This anger was like dried blood, caked into his hands, shoved up deeply under his fingernails. He didn't want to touch her with this filth, he didn't feel he could be near her until he cleared his head. Until he could behave again, act the way she deserved to be treated.

She was tolerating his pathetic attempts so far, after all. He had to show respect for that, and for the beautiful, kind woman she was.

So he drank the chocolate she had brought. He preferred coffee- no-nonsense and functional- but he was cold and hungry. He appreciated it. He still didn't quite feel clean in thought or word, but he wanted to do something. He went to retrieve her cup, wash them both for her. Practical things that he knew how to do. But.. she pulled him down, and he was suddenly, breathlessly reminded that she wanted to be with him. She wanted him there.

A few minutes, endless and golden with perfect silence, her arms around him. It felt like the first time he'd been warm in _years. _And something happened, she bolted away. It took him a moment to read her, decode her few words.. but he was confident now that he could read her well enough.

She was worried. And he'd have to get off his sniveling ass and act like a fucking _adult _for a change. Do something that wasn't cowardly and actually talk to her.

He suspected they'd have to _talk about feelings_ at that, which was about his worst skill imaginable.

But this was the difference between Orochimaru and his quick, sickening little sexual thrills, and actually behaving like a gentleman. Which was what his parents would have wanted. So he straightened his shirt, re-fastened the cuffs, ran a hand through his damp hair and went to go try his best.

The cottage was small. There was the room close to the surface, the little tea cottage's paper and wood sanctuary. The fire she had made was there, wool rugs, a gathered group of couches. Beyond it, the wooden stairs to a sunken hallway with the small training room, a few closets. Another flight of compact stone steps and there was a small kitchen. Hinata had lit candles here. She was kneeling before an open cabinet, the smooth surfaces of plastic and foil food packages catching liquid traces of light from the floor.

"Hinata." he said, trying to make his voice seem less... well, designed to make people back the hell off and leave him alone. Which was what he usually wanted. Almost always. He saw her stiffen. She was buried to her upper arm in the depths of the cabinet, and he saw that arm halt. She didn't turn around, so he drew breath and said again. "Hinata."

She looked at him over her shoulder. Her soft hair falling into her eyes.

She was so.. _so.. _goddamn beautiful. So beautiful. Better then he deserved.

He approached her carefully. Slowly. Making the movements as fluid and unthreatening as possible. That was easier, his body was his most perfect tool. She pulled herself out of the cabinet and leaned back on her heels, turning her head to watch him.

He wanted to gather her hair, pull it gently off her arms and shoulders. He hesitated, and in that half-second her hand darted up and shook it back. He watched her hair scatter, float, then fall down perfectly over her back, a long silken blue river. He had to catch his breath, because she was looking at him, her pale eyes were dizzying, like looking into finely cut crystals. The facets of a diamond. He'd blinked away the sharingan, but he suspected that he saw deeply, he saw something of how her byakugan worked, and how _she _worked, behind it.

"Hinata." he whispered, cupping her cheek. Feeling her warmth, her softness. Convincing himself on some level that she was real, she was right in front of him. A crisp, inescapable reality.

He could read her. She was worried, upset. There was something on her mind. It seemed sensible to just put his arms around her, so he did, and cuddled her as best he could, with his aching arms and his half-bleeding hand. It was hard to summon any comfort from flesh he'd beaten down into hard reflexive steel, but she turned slightly, and snuggled against him. He stroked her hair, gathered his thoughts. Thought back to what he knew of kindness. There was some to be had from the kunoichi of Otokagure, the ones that Orocharimaru brought to him to be used and slaughtered. Sasuke suspected they were chosen for their residual traces of compassion, as if Orochimaru wanted to set out a vividly bloody object lesson in this principle over and over again. Kindness was weakness. Closeness was weakness. It got you nothing but a brutal death at the hands of the cold, hateful and powerful...

Or maybe Orochimaru chose them to manipulate him, sensing these hidden little desires that he never bothered to investigate himself.

But he'd learned from them. He'd learned bits and pieces. Some had taught him the edge of a gentle stroke to his cheek, a touch of sympathy in their eyes. They'd taught him the warmth and comfort of their bodies, undeniable, even when he'd attempted to take Orochimaru completely to heart and hate them, see them as bodies, useless flesh, degraded and filthy...

He'd learned, too, maybe reasonably, from his own mother. Long ago. When he'd been young enough to still have a family and a world with some open roads of hope in it. When he'd been upset about something Itachi had said, or his father hadn't bothered to say, or notice. He'd sullenly retreated to turn his back on the house, the world at large. His mother had come to find him, pull him into her arms. She had prodded his worries and doubts out of him, with gentle hands and her easy smile, which never failed to convince him that everything really would be all right after all.

So he held Hinata- pausing to repeat her name to himself in his thoughts- _Hinata, Hinata. _It really was the perfect name for her. She was so warm. And she felt safe. She felt at once familiar and compelling, comforting in the natural way of fundamentally good things, things that could be relied upon, that were trusted, true.

He applied his knowledge, spoke to her in what he remembered of those simple rhythms in his mother's voice. Simple questions. Patience. What was wrong? Was she worried? What about? He had to encourage her several times. But he seemed to manage it well enough. She finally told him that she was worried because she felt she was getting attached to him. And that she also worried that he would only see her as what Orochimaru would have wanted him to see...

But he couldn't brood over that, he was struggling against a dangerous little gleam of hope, deep inside himself, because she _liked him, _she wanted to get closer. She wanted him. And it was dizzying, contemplating that. It was _so tempting, _it lit up those tiny dormant flames of hope and wistfulness. The simple desire to just not leave her house..

He didn't know what to say, even what to think so he said _that,_ forced himself to speak. To tell her. He didn't want to leave her, either. He would rather stay with her.

Itachi's hard, crushing hand rushed up his spine and _grabbed _him, hard, caught him in a tight grip of sudden fear, but he fought it down.

She felt it, felt him seize up. So he told her _that _too, in a long bloody rush, told her that he'd lost his entire life to hate and fear and killing rage, and he'd had to destroy this hope inside himself before. And he just didn't want to do it agian. Not when he _knew _now, knew that there was nothing but despair at the end of it.

He had to catch his breath. It felt wrong, but it would never feel right, even if it _was _right. He had to do this, sometime.. somehow. It was just too much, too fast, too much honesty. It felt like a deep arterial cut, imperfectly stitched, and now bursting open with a violent splatter.

But she got her little arms around him. She pulled him into her lap, and held him there. And it was the same gesture reflected so exactly. Unmistakable.

"All right." he whispered. Tried to keep his voice from shaking and gave up, it was a lost cause. He focused on just getting the words out. "I'll tell you."

They'd talk about this. Really _talk._ Get it all out and laid out on the table. Everything. All of it. Anything could happen.. he felt the world spinning out of control, his grip slipping on the only thing that had kept him from drowning, falling into nothingness.

But her hand was tight, and warm and steady, holding his. So he held on. And took a deep breath.

And the damn edge of that letter _stuck _him right in the healing depths of the sword wound. He felt blood well up and bit back a curse against the pain. He just fumbled it out of his pocket and shoved it inarticulately at Hinata when she bent over him, concerned. In a moment the pain faded. Hinata was still close, her hand was still holding him up.

And he had to do this. He took a breath. And kept going.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Sasuke was talking to her. He had an incredibly focused way of speaking at the best of times, and she could feel the sheer force behind every word he said, now. He was full of tension, breathing hard. Explaining.

She had to push away her worries and try hard to really be present in the moment. Be there for him. That was easy.. it wasn't hard. What _was_ really hard was processing all of this. She wanted to take him to a familiar room, sit down on the tatami mats, like she did with Neji, with her sister, with her father. As if just by assuming the appearance of normality it would make this somehow easier to sort out.

But she couldn't move. She didn't want to move. She had his hand in hers, and he was holding it so tightly, as if he couldn't stand to let her go. She lay her head on his shoulder, felt the faint vibration of the words through his chest and neck. Listened. Tried to be her true self, her responsible and confident self.

"Wait.." she whispered, her other hand fluttering to his arm. "Just a minute.. please."

He was telling her that there was a problem. She struggled to grasp what he was saying. The words were there, but the full picture didn't make sense. She stopped him, she reconstructed as best as she could. He'd gone to.. to_ the legendary sannin Orochimaru.. _the one who had killed the Third. The enemy of Konoha who had shattered the chuunin exam into a smoking crater in the middle of the village...

In the midst of that, the memories and the grim images all this called up from her imagination, there was a second of silence. A pause of breath, as Sasuke grimly set his jaw and looked down, she suddenly was hyper-aware of his hands around hers. The tight, hard calluses on his fingers, the near-crushing grip he had on her. He was almost hurting her. She could almost feel his pulse through his skin. He was so close, his energy and the static charge of his intense focus was so overwhelming. It was one thing to contemplate the damaged hole in Team 7 from the comfort of her own team, her ordered life. It was another to have it alive and furiously upset right in front of you. Towering over you slightly, at that.

"You must have known," he said, breathing a bit hard. He'd said that several times now, Hinata realized. Like a mantra. She must know, everyone must know. Like he'd resigned himself to being Konoha's public shame. But, no, she told him that she knew only the most basic details. She did not know who he'd run to exactly, simply that he'd vanished and that when he'd been found, he'd seemed so changed.

She paused, saying that, looking up into his eyes. "What happened to you?" she asked, softly. "Naruto said that he called for you and you just ran away from him." Naruto had said much more, once in the grip of a long night after dinner when they'd all had a bit too much sake and Sakura had subsided into her own dark silence over this. Hinata left the other parts out, the ones that Naruto had grimly described, one hand around the sake bottle. Cold laughter. Mocking. Sasuke's icy sneer.

And here and now, Sasuke looked away sharply, his dark hair fluttered and fell against his face.

"I wasn't thinking straight." he said, tightly.

He looked back and his eyes connected with hers. He said, almost coldly, that he'd been a million things, jealous and angry and alone. He said that it still didn't make sense. In the tangle of it all, the hard pulse of all that chakra moving under his skin like patterns of scattering fire, all Hinata could hear was one thin thread and his fingers tightening desperately around it.

Like it was all that was holding him together. It scared her, he felt like he might fly apart at any moment. And she was all alone in an ice storm with him. She didn't fear for herself, she feared for _him, _and before she even knew it, her arms were around him again, she was whispering a flood of soothing, simple reassurances in his ear, and the shivers tearing through his strong body were violent enough to quiver right up through her hand, her shoulders, into the bones of her chest.

I wasn't thinking, he said too, several times. Like he was retouching the same spot over and over, probing at a wound.

_I wasn't thinking._

Well, Hinata had to do something. She held him and eventually shushed him and tried to think. If he were one of her students.. well, if he were she could solve this with a brightly colored band aid or a piece of candy from her desk, or a gold star.. or a hug, simple words of encouragement. But they were children, her students... and suddenly so was she. Just the barely-adult daughter of the vast looming house of Hyuga. She could handle.. almost handle.. the problems in her own life. She had thought that maybe she could do the same for him. She'd imagined doing it, wanted it. She'd wondered if he would allow it or want it. But now that he all but said that he did, she struggled to handle it. She needed another moment to breathe.

"Shh.." she murmured, softly, against his ear. "It will be all right, my family will do something...my family can do anything.."

She wasn't thinking of the words as she said them, this was just what Miya and sometimes Neji would say to her, trying to comfort her.

She'd known that there was a trace of acid sarcasm in Neji's tone, when he'd said it. But there was sincerity, too... and she did believe it.

She gently worked her fingertips into the snarls of tension at the back of Sasuke's neck and in the hunch of his shoulders.

Time passed, she vaguely sensed that it was past midnight now. The quality of the air had changed to that of deep night.

When the silence had deepened more, turned almost opaque, she breathed, and felt her heartbeat stuttering along anxiously. Sasuke was warm and still and full of uneasy lightning traces in her arms. He was a bit heavy, and every flicker of movement from him just reminded her how of how sharply real and dangerous he was.

She closed her eyes and tipped her head back against the cabinets. Cold air rippled against her throat.

Not dangerous in the sense of a physical attacker. Even a professional killer like he was, like they both were, but he was in particular. Dangerous instead in the sense of everything falling apart at any second, that he was alive but he could fly apart. He could run back. He could simply get to the point and end his own life. That's what he said, _get to the point. _The point of the matter. She found herself absently touching the underside of his wrists, looking for scars. But, this was silly.. she knew that if he really wanted it, he'd have succeeded. Immediately.

"You're holding on for a reason..." she whispered, almost to herself. "You're staying alive for a reason."

The bones and tendons of his shoulder blades knotted right back up again under her fingers. "I told you." he muttered, almost angrily.

His brother.

"But.. but you're here, and you don't want to go back. You could end it anytime you like.. and..." she was stumbling for the reason, the thin thread, but she kept on going, even as the old stuttering anxiety roared back once, just for a second. "..y-you must want to change for _some reason, _you must feel differently now, you don't want to die like you did before.." And she knew that she was just making it worse. She didn't know what else she could do but be quiet. She shut her mouth.

She leaned over him slightly, gathering him a bit closer to her chest and set to work trying to massage the tension out of him again. He shifted in her arms, but didn't pull away.

This anger was not directed at her, it rushed by her head, missing her. Even though his voice was low and threatening, and her body poured adrenaline into her blood, worried at his closeness, the violent intimations hovering around every word he said. But she knew better. She held fast. She trusted herself, her instincts. She could summon enough confidence to bank on them, now when it counted.

"I don't want to throw my entire life away, and it makes me a _fucking coward." _he snapped, enunciating the last words with brutal efficiency.

"I don't think you're a coward." she said, softly, her own half-whisper almost hiding the grimness in her voice. "I know you're not a coward. You've been wronged by my family and by this village, we left you all alone.. anyone would slip between the cracks but you held on.. you are _not _a coward.." and so on, losing track of what exactly she was saying herself, even as she said it. Nothing seemed to matter but holding on, keeping him going. As if her voice was the only thing keeping him alive.

It almost seemed to calm him, even if the silence and the tense set of his face spoke mostly of sullen resignation.

Finally he said "I'm still going to kill him."

With absolute certainty, as if it were a universal law of nature.

Hinata had pressed her lips to his ear, to his throat, just to feel the rush of blood under his skin, the gleaming, subtle lines of chakra. His strength was so exhilarating, so undeniable, like a force of nature all in itself. Why couldn't he see it?

"I think that you should just get away from your sensei," she whispered, in the silence that followed. "I know it's not my business, but that's what I feel would be right."

He breathed, took several breaths before he answered.

"It's not that simple." he said tightly.

She nodded slightly, his sleek dark hair pressed against her cheek. He smelled of ashes, soap and rubbing alcohol. She sighed, and softened the words. "Simple or not, it's right. It doesn't matter if it's simple. It's right."

She was so distracted by Sasuke and his overwhelming maelstrom of charka and tension. It took her a moment to realize that the words were not her own. She was quoting her father.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Sasuke wasn't sure about this. He didn't stop, but he wasn't sure.

What did they call this?

_Spilling your guts. _

It was apt, that's exactly what it felt like. It wore him out. After he'd gotten it all out, he rested in her arms, feeling strangely out of breath, as if he'd just fought sharp and hard, tooth and nail for just a bit past his comfort zone of endurance.

It felt perversely good, at that. Clean. Like good, honest hard work, as if he'd done something right.

It also felt horrible, fatal and mortifying. But he kept breathing. Kept going. Kept speaking. All of it. Orochimaru. Itachi. No half-measures. _All of it._

He didn't stop her. He didn't push her away or make her stop massaging his neck in a way that almost made his toes curl, it felt so damn _good.. _even if he felt _horrible, _he was talking about the worst things in the world. The worst and most nightmarish conversation in the world...

The entire situation was going in strange directions, but he held on. He kept going. He sensed that this had to be done. He had to go through this bloodletting.

But he _couldn't fucking think, _he just knew like a trapped animal- _out, out, escape- _and his guiding light was just the instinct to push through it. He had to trust that reason would return.

In the meantime, she was a good anchor. She was calm and warm and she felt so steady. Her hands felt like they could save him, wash him clean of all this _filth. _Under all the panic and worry he thought dimly that he needed to just let her do this then think later. He'd decide later... He closed his eyes, surrounded by her warm hands, the soft tickle of her hair, that intoxicating floral scent that clung to her skin. Her body heat moved through the heavy fabric of her jacket to touch him, gently. He held on to her and just kept going. One breath after another.

But he wasn't sure. He knew... well, of course he thought that getting the hell away from Orochimaru the psychological torturer would be an _excellent _idea, yes. Doing so would be a _pretty fucking good trick, _but he ordered himself not to think about that. The whys and wherefores could wait. All that mattered was being here. This way out, like a magic doorway, an escape hatch, due to vanish any moment. He could take his eyes off it and be lost in the nightmare again.

But he couldn't think. He was out of it tonight. He'd thought the panic would subside as it usually did, but it was digging it's claws in. It was warm and comfortable too, it refused to leave.

At least... she was so warm. He couldn't get over it.. the feeling of this. Her arms around him tightly, all of her attention on _him _and not on Itachi or some fantasy impossible version of him that he didn't even recognize.

But he couldn't stop worrying. He'd always had this problem. Even before the night.

And it _was _a problem. Fantasies of her body and her love and her warm house, and some improbable heroic return to grace were all well and good, but he _didn't believe in that. _It couldn't exist. The world was just not like this, actions had consequences and sometimes the wounds were just too deep.

If they were to do this.. _really _do it, not just play at it like two broken horny lonely teenagers...

..which is _exactly _what they were. Sasuke didn't deceive himself on that point.

If they were to do it properly, there would be problems. More problems then he could count. There was her family, her father, who will likely have him castrated at dawn for even thinking about this. There was the whole crushing Konoha bureaucracy which would bring it's iron gavel down on his head- and he would _deserve _it. He ran. He resisted. He almost killed Naruto, for one. There were probably other genin with Naruto. Who even knew what the Four had done to them.

And there was himself. The biggest impossible problem of them all.

If they did this. If they got closer. She would get closer to him. To all of him. To the parts that were explosive.

Not just this unused, clumsy part of him that he was not used to feeling, affection. Desire. Not just that. All of him. The parts that were soaked through with rage and tears and rusted over. Not just his best behavior, or these simple, safe, happy emotions like enjoying being around her, enjoying her company. No. The parts of him that had been twisted by Orochimaru's cold, hard hand. The parts of him that had vanished entirely into anger and sorrow. The parts of him that never had a chance to grow properly and now will never be whole, ever. The parts that were crawling with the rage that infected everything, so that everything he felt turned to shit and anger and resentment and finally bitterness, distain, hatred. All of it. All of him. It was not a matter of _if _some of that bile and filth got on her, it was a matter of _when._

How the _fuck _was he supposed to explain that to her?

He didn't know. He had no idea. He dimly though that he _knew _this, that he knew he shouldn't get close to anyone, ever. It wasn't just a matter of being uncomfortable and fucking hopeless with people, and mostly disliking them, and hating everything and everyone just on principle. He knew that and he did it anyway and now he was in this mess... _he didn't want to fucking lose her, _and he knew he shouldn't have let himself get close in the first place.

But he was just.. so... _so.. fucking... tired._

Of Orochimaru. Of the whole bullshit power play show that went nowhere, and Sasuke knew that Orochimaru probably wasn't going to produce, not ever. Why should he? What was the point, when it was more fun to fuck Sasuke in mind, body and spirit, fuck him up somehow more then he already was, and six years of detailed examination had revealed Orochimaru as a glorified fucking trickster, with maybe a lazy streak of sadism and a talent for manipulation.

Sasuke was _not like him, _and somehow it was true in a way that didn't make him feel any better.

And he knew he was in very deep now, that Orochimaru would not let him go. That he couldn''t go on this way. That this _wasn't fucking living, _but he wasn't alive, he was a ghost, _but no he fucking wasn't-_

Life wasn't just going to end because he wanted it to.

And Itachi took his parents, his family, his home, his sense of the fairness and safety and the world itself, Itachi took everything, but left him with his life.

So here he is, desperate and clinging and chasing after Itachi, begging for Itachi's attention, begging Itachi to give him a tiny little taste of approval, just enough to keep him breathing until he can beg a bit more. Chasing, hating, working, training, endlessly thinking and second-guessing, killing over and over in his mind, never allowing himself to have another thought, another feeling, another day or night beyond _the _night, the only thing that matters. He was desperate to believe this. That's what it was. Desperation.

Begging Itachi to kill him.

That's what it was. Fuck it. He knew! He didn't need Orochimaru to slime his ear with that little morsel, he fucking _knew. _He lived with himself. He knew what it was. Energy, focus, drive, what little he had to give, his pissant second-ran talent, his wreckage of a life that he'd tended with precision, keeping all the wounds fresh and bleeding, the scene hot and livid with the exact horrible atmosphere of his parents' house, their bedroom, on that night that was everything.

All of it was a suicide note spelt out in action, word and deed.

So, was he worth killing yet? Would Itachi kill him yet? _Why the fuck did Itachi hesitate! _

Still. Even when he was strong. When he'd trained. When he _had _the fucking chidori! When he was sure he'd climbed high, so high and above everyone else, just the two of them high in the heavens, lifted up by the wings of their blood.

But Itachi brushed him aside. A flick of his fingers, and Sasuke's back hit the wall. Itachi turned back to things that mattered, in that case it was Naruto.

And Sasuke had to bite down on the inside of his lip, hard as he could, just to keep the rage and the fear and the rest of it down inside, down wherever he managed to shove it, and keep it down. He didn't want to fall into one of those endless horrible nights where he'd pace and rage and everything would just spill out of him. And he wouldn't be able to stop shaking, stop throwing up, stop prowling his room and worrying and hating and finally crying and just feeling completely out of control and like he's coming apart at the seams. Which he would be. Which is exactly what it was. And he wasn't in a place where he could safely lock himself away to suffer through it, he was with her.

And he didn't want her to see this part of him. It was just so fucking ugly. He didn't want to have to look at it or see it, or even think about it himself.

He was eighteen, he wasn't seven. When he was twelve he'd been more absolute, maybe. He'd been more determined. Now he was eighteen, and he knew the end of this particular hasty path of action.

He knew that there was actually something beyond all the anger and hate.

As simple as not wanting to leave her warm arms, her warm house, the warmth of her understanding for cold, darkness, ugly twisted people and petty little power games. And he knew that this had been coming for a long time.

Confessions. Retractions. Penitence.

Sasuke had screamed and raged and lashed out with killing force, trying to tear the life right out of Naruto's battered body, Naruto's head flopping at that sickening angle, his neck broken. Sasuke had insisted and turned and shut everyone out, refused to hear, to listen, and even to _think _at all, to hear the wisdom in Kakashi's words when he was shaking with rage, bound to the tree, his head reeling with the fear of action and the desperate need to take it.

He'd pushed and pushed.. screamed that he didn't care what happened, that he had no life, he had nothing to lose, there wasn't even going to _be _a tomorrow to pay up for this in. The bills would never come due. Never. He'd focused and refocused on Itachi. There was nothing beyond Itachi. As if that somehow became true just by wishing and believe it. And he'd just pushed on, getting himself deeper and deeper. And he knew he fought hard to keep himself from knowing, but he slowly came to know that he would have to pay.

He'd have to find his way back.

It was easy when he was seven to make vows and commit the whole of his empty life to them, he had nothing else. It was easy when he was twelve to completely snap and lose it and just throw caution away because he was so furious and the fury was taking over completely; it was so easy to let it.

And it was fucking _hard as hell _when he was eighteen to face that, deal with it, figure out what the hell he was supposed to do now. Because killing Itachi would be satisfying and it would seal up his heart in some sick, exquisitely perfect way, it would be done. But it wouldn't be everything. He couldn't lie to himself this way anymore. Not anymore. He was fucking eighteen, he wasn't seven.

It was easy to believe in stupid, endless fights and hatred and the supremacy of your hurt feelings when you were twelve.

He got the power, he got the training. He became stronger and stronger. And was empty, it made no difference.

It changed nothing. He was _so_ tired of having fucking _nothing. _

He wanted this. He wanted her. He wanted something else... finally.

He didn't know what he'd do about Itachi. About Orochimaru. About Naruto. About himself, his whole demon-strewn life to date. He just wanted to curl up in her arms, feel the distant murmur of her heartbeat, the heat of her body, the perfect serenity of her presence and sleep for damn near forever. And deal with this when he woke.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Hinata thought that maybe they'd feel better if they ate something.

She felt stupid as she said it. But it was true.. she hadn't eaten. She didn't think he had, he looked like someone who hadn't had a moment to himself for some time now. She'd been unpacking the cabinet looking for something they could eat with no power, no heat. It was a bit chilly in here, away from the fire.

He didn't sneer at the suggestion, at least. He accepted the packages of rice crackers and lukewarm cans of lychee juice she finally settled on. There were noodles and dehydrated seaweed, and a freezer full of melting seafood. But that would all require boiling water and the fire. She was starving. Sasuke seemed to be hungry as well, he straightened and seemed, at least for a moment, to ease up just a little bit. They ate in silence.

Hinata thought distantly that this wasn't how she'd pictured a romantic tryst would be, somehow. Sitting on the kitchen floor next to open cabinets, his bare feet close to hers. The candlelight was there, she'd turned off the flashlight to conserve the batteries and lit a handful of pink tealights. But the rest of it was far from glamorous. Two young ninjas, both of them in trouble, even if one of them was in much deeper trouble then the other. One a talented fighter, one barely adequate. She nudged his foot with her toes, and he let her. He almost smiled, in the half-second before his deep, angry glower descended again, like a heavy raincloud. The tiled floor was cold under the thin fabric of her pants.

But it was perfect, somehow, she thought... her eyes lingering on him. He caught her doing it, as usual. But he didn't seem to be made any angrier by it. It almost seemed to please him. He looked back at her, in that intense focused way he had, as if he were drinking in every detail. It was still hard to believe that he was here, that she was here with him.

Ordinary things seemed to help. It distracted them. He gathered up the wrappers and she put the empty cans in the recycling bin. She filled up the kettle and found some tea leaves that were still fairly fresh. Sasuke carried the kettle for her. He took her hand. They went back to the fire. He hung the kettle over the flames and she shook out the fluffy cotton blanket that she had left to face the fireplace and warm against it's heat. Sasuke gently pulled her into his arms and settled into the cushions with her. She gathered the blanket around them. And even in the midst of all these difficulties there was comfort in that. Simple sheer _togetherness._

She closed her eyes. It would be easy, and so wonderful to just snuggle up in his arms, feel his fingers running through her hair, the million intriguing little twinges of strength and wit and talent and everything else about him, all those hidden things that made him the person he was. Think of nothing else. But...

...her family would return tomorrow. Tomorrow evening. Already, outside, the world must be turning just to the edge of early morning. She was too full of adrenaline to sleep, somehow, but she felt like she could stay here, rest in his arms. As if all the problems in the world were locked outside in the howling storm.

"We have until tomorrow afternoon." she said finally.

She felt him thinking. Calcuating the hours left, she thought.

She thought that he would ask her now. He would ask her for her decision. He would have to, wouldn't he? She felt herself cringing slightly in embarrassment, she didn't know what she wanted. She wanted him, she wanted to be with him, try to love him, but to go straight to it... One night. Straight to it. It wasn't her, somehow. She wanted more. There _was _nothing else, there were so many problems... but just _one _night...

She sighed, waiting for the question. She had no idea what she would say.

Instead, though, he said, almost sheepishly. "...here."

She opened her eyes, feeling him shift position. He had moved his arm from her shoulder to slip into the loose pockets in Neji's pants. A moment later he pulled a long square of paper free of the blanket, and she took it, not remembering what it was.

_Oh, _she thought. The letter.

A death in the family.

"Miya told me to read this in the morning..." she murmured, uncertainly. The simple envelope, it's harmless little stamped numbers.. it was amazing how it could take on such intense weight.

Her great aunt? Her grandfather? Her great uncles? She hoped it wasn't her grandfather. She would miss him.

Sasuke took it from her, gently. As she watched, drawing herself deeper into the shelter of his arms, he efficiently tore open one end with his thumb and pulled out neatly folded papers. Hinata saw the crest of the Kirigakure and the familiar seal of the medic-nins, their hospital. She closed her eyes.

She waited.

He had a firm, steady voice. Absolute confidence. It could be warm, she'd heard affection in it. Affection that just was, that wasn't showy and didn't draw attention to itself.

But he didn't speak. She opened her eyes and looked up at him. There was a strange, still look in his face. And more then that, a look in his eyes. Consternation.

He caught sight of her watching him, his eyes flicked from the pages to her, and he looked more uncertain then before. But he said, quickly. "Are you sure you want me to read this?"

She nodded. "My eyes are sore from crying." she said. It wasn't entirely true. Somehow, for some reason, she wanted to hear his voice. It would comfort her, she thought. Even if it was her reasonably kind grandfather, who had been far away and out of her reach, occupied with high matters of family business, even so. Somehow it would be easier, she thought, if she heard it from Sasuke, in his precise, direct, confident words.

Sasuke frowned and something in his eyes said _okay _with determination that just seemed like it was second nature. He decided to do things and then he did them. Simple as that.

Hinata closed her eyes and settled her ear against his chest. The faint murmur of his heart came through the woven cotton of his shirt. She curled her hands into the warm fabric of his loose sleeve. She felt better. She waited.

Sasuke hesitated once, but cleared his throat.

"For the attention of Hyuga Hinata," he read, with efficient directness. She almost missed the faint quiver of his hand on her back. "Hyuga Hiashi suffered a fatal heart attack at ten in the morning yesterday, March fifteenth-"

"Wait." she wasn't talking. The words were coming from somewhere else.

He paused, tense against her now. "Do you want me to repeat-"

"Wait..!" she interrupted, her fingers tugging at his sleeve. She was only half aware of how rude that was. She was dizzy, suddenly.

She felt him shift uncomfortably and say, again, a bit more softly. "That's what it says. Hyuga Hiashi suffered a fatal heart attack-"

_"Wait!" _she was suddenly exhausted, terrified. Her heart was racing. "No.. I mean... I... please-" The words weren't going anywhere, but they kept coming.

"Hinata." he said.

She tore the papers out of his hand, it was rude and she knew it but her body was moving beyond her control. She sat up and wrenched herself into the firelight so she could see and the words snapped into focus, _Hyuga Hiashi suffered a fatal heart attack _and she was suddenly screaming, she was certain she was. Or maybe she was moving. Sasuke had grasped her wrists, holding her back. She was trying to throw the papers into the fire because it _wasn't true it wasn't true it wasn't- _

He had her tightly with one hand, gathered up and pressed into the crook of his arm, buttressed against his chest. He had the letter in his other hand. He was methodically smoothing the creases from her clawing fingers from the paper. Some part of her thought that this was strange, that he could be so calm. That it was strange that she was so upset because there was nothing really wrong, this wasn't really happening.

But Sasuke's hand tightened on her shoulder, pulling her back. "Hinata." he said. She suddenly couldn't look into his eyes. Face what she knew she'd see there, even though she didn't want to _know _it, not just yet. She was concentrating on breathing, it was suddenly so hard. The affection and worry in his voice was unbearable.

"Hinata." he whispered, soft against her ear. "It will hurt less if you listen..." And his voice went on.

Hyuga Hiashi, ten am. Dead of heart failure. 47.


	10. Sealed

Sasuke was not in a position where he could freak out. Not again. Hinata needed him.

He was here. Back in Konoha, locked up with the new heir of the entire clan house of Hyuga- _in a snowstorm- _in the middle of the night.. a bit buzzed still from the scotch... pissed off.. what else?

Not alone. Reconsidering. Trying not to freak out- again. Not to freak out _again._ That essentially covered it. Sasuke watched Hinata sleep and tried to figure out what the hell he wanted.

What the _fucking hell _did he want?

Because it mattered now. He was going to do something. _He was going to have to do something, _Hinata's family was _coming back. _Hinata had to be protected from them, he could imagine what they'd do to her. Orochimaru would come looking for him, and the fucking Hokage might just toss him in prison and throw away the key.

And he probably wasn't quite well enough to go at it with the _fucking Four, _now that he thought about it. Or Hinata's _goddamn family. _Or whatever ANBU agents they'd send for him. Or bloody fucking hell _goddamn_ Naruto. Or Sakura. Who would come for him, both of them. Who would _barge _in, he knew them too well.

He snarled under his breath, tightening his fists.

He had to think. Did he want to go back? Knowing fully what it was.. what Orochimaru would do to him.. and still want it?

Did he want the other option..? The prison, ANBU, Hyuga family, hunted-down-like-a-miserable-_dog _by Orochimaru option?

But he would have Hinata...

Maybe. _Maybe _he would have Hinata. Assuming he ever saw daylight again.

He had to stop, think. _Act. _Make a good, clear decision. He wanted to stay with her, but... he'd _wanted _Orochimaru, too. Hadn't he?

Of course. He'd wanted punishment. Well- he'd gotten it. And now he'd get even more. He was just _lucky _that way, wasn't he? Sasuke growled under his breath, and had to stop and tone it down, so he wouldn't wake Hinata.

Pacing was all right. That was quiet.

Hinata took the death of her father better then most would. No one took these things gracefully.

For a while, she simply stared into the flames, tense on the edge of the couch cushions. Her body was stiff and taut under the lame comforting arm Sasuke tried to put around her shoulders. He sensed that he should not talk to her, not yet. So he simply was there with her, in the same place. The time for talking would come. He'd tell her what he knew, that the pain never really went away, but it hollowed out. It became a part of you. He remembered, too, what had hurt him the most, on that night. Being alone. Being entirely achingly _alone, _all alone in the entire world.

But she took it much better then he had. That was something.

Hinata eventually collapsed into sleep. He lay her down carefully on the cushions and propped them under her head so that she wouldn't wake with neck pains, as he usually did. He took a certain perverse pride in being pointlessly careless with his own health, his own body. Like pain was something he _wanted, _and it was... Hinata slept for only a few hours, the silent backwash of energy from the storm pressed against the walls like slow dark tides. The wind was starting to die down. The fire was falling into deep embers and occasional snaps of sparks. He fed it a few more logs of cedar. He knelt and breathed soft little breaths of fire into the crumpled nests of old newspapers he set on the logs. The fire leapt up again, and flickered soft shadows across Hinata's sleeping face.

Sasuke slipped into the darkened hallway, pressed his hands against the icy windowpanes built into the paper facade of the tea cottage. They were frozen solid, completely blocked with an interlaced pattern of frost. He couldn't get a sense of the night air from them. It may have been around two in the morning. He hadn't slept well in days, not since he drank himself into a pleasant stupidly sentimental coma, the day Hinata had brought him the sake. The day, too, they had actually spoken, for the first time.

It had only been a few days. Less then a week.

Hinata had been too quiet, he thought, just after. She'd stared into the fire, too tense to be her normal self. He was worrying, keeping it down to a slow burn. He thought that he'd know what to do in the morning. He'd catch some rest. He'd get back to his more rational daytime self. At least the tears and panic had dried up.. been sucked right back down, by what had happened right in front of him.

He did sleep. He sat down beside her and moved her head gently into his lap. He lifted his feet off the cold floor. The fire blazed on, currents of heat washed over him and shifted slowly around him. He closed his eyes for what he thought would be a moment...

He dreamed of the soft surround-sound rustle of leaves. The darkness of the deep forest. The slow, effortless seduction... and he realized slowly in dreamtime that he was dreaming of the snake. Orochimaru's massive whiplash-quick snake, the Forest of Death falling into darkness all around him. Snakeskin had splintered, and Orochimaru had extruded himself out slowly, like dripping pus, Sasuke had thought, his stomach twisting. Maybe it was just the smell. Orochimaru, that snake, both of them smelled like a festering wound. Sweet and sickening, damp. He woke up retching, his hands grasping at his throat.

He remembered Hinata too late. But he hadn't woken her.

He wondered about her, anyway... as he ran his hands very lightly over her hair, trying to calm himself. Her softness... He'd meant it, that he would behave himself. He would try to be a gentleman, and_ trying _was not good enough, he'd _do _it. He wondered about her.. about her hidden self, her secret desires.

He really had to wonder. His own sexual awakening had consisted of being shaken from a deep sleep to find Orochimaru's hand down his pants. He'd been slow to come to this point, slow for his age. Naruto raced ahead of him, Sakura looked back at him. And he understood, intellectually, but he didn't _feel _it. Not really. Itachi was in the way. Delaying him.. so that when the time came, he was made in Orochimaru's image.

And really, even given that... no better then any other godforsaken idiot teenage boy, pawing around with stupid lust and his tongue dragging out like an over-excited _puppy. _Getting whacked with the proverbial rolled-up newspaper, slapped away from Orochimaru's leg just as much as he was pushed to the ground, indulged, set damn near on _fire _inside. Dammit. That _asshole. _Orochimaru had done this. Sasuke _knew _that he wasn't this way when he was younger, this was _Orochimaru's _fault.

And surely Hinata came from a gentler world. She would have had time to dream.

He worried, anyway, about touching her with his filthy hands.. his body, used a million times over, Orochimaru drawing blood and chakra, pain and pleasure... Orochimaru's mark on him like a fingerprint bruise. Hinata may like him, and he was through whining about whether she did or not, but it didn't change where he'd been. What he'd done. He was possibly less of a contamination risk then some brainless feudal lord with a concubine stable and a braying enthusiasm for whoring, yes. Kunoichi must have some way of mitigating these risks. But... still. He felt guilty already.

But he could make a case for being different and better and above it. Because it wasn't just her body. It was _her. _ He wanted _her. _All of her. It wouldn't be enough for him either, whatever they called this.. that _vulgar _expression. Fuck and run. He grimaced, rubbing at his tired eyes. Too much sharingan. He wasn't healed. His hand had stopped bleeding.

And it was fascinating to him. Her desires, hidden and dignified. Expressed perfectly, he thought.. with perfect clarity and timing. He'd rather think about this, rather then the same ordered set of calculated rage all the time. What sort of fantasies would a innocent girl have? Hinata had grown up in this house, it was practically a fairytale dungeon. There were servants and luxuries, gardens full of exotic plants and animals, endless paper halls swirling with an undertone of incense.. and intrigue. Her family would probably play the _worst _sort of decadent power games. Sasuke knew the type. Hinata wasn't telling him the half of it, he could tell.

So he tried to think about that, rather then worrying... a whole family consumed with light. Not in the ashen way his own clan had been. The Hyuga aspired to something higher, purer. They accepted no earthly limitations.

A childhood spent in a vast garden, an endless paper and wood castle of a house. He could imagine Hinata growing up here, playing in this closed, safe world of her own. It wouldn't be hard to become imaginative, whimsical, given this. His own compound had formed a dusty, ordered playground. Plants, stones, temple bells, carved and painted fans, the Uchiha were no-nonsense people. Everything in it's place. Order above all. Imagination and romantic fancy were useless to a policeman. You had to keep your eyes down to earth and your mind on the law.

The letter of the law. It had to be exact.

And it was a sacred duty, in the ordinary way that any essential task was. The Uchiha held up the pillars of the village. They were indispensable, fundamental. They were the foundation. But they were nothing like the Hyuga, who existed to rule at the pinnacle, to shine brightly. To simply _be _the best and brightest, always.

He sighed. It would be hard to compete with that. To _be _that. He wondered if the damned old woman had actually _meant _it.. he didn't want to dare to hope. Disappointment would be fatal. He didn't know what Hinata would think.. what she would do.

What _he _would do.. what could he do? It would be like trying to compete with fucking _Naruto, _with Naruto's wild exotic fiery demonic energy, Naruto's infectious brightness and enthusiasm, Naruto's endless magical gift to imagine and strive and escape the ordered boxes that life sorted him into. Sasuke proceeded swiftly and surely along straight paths of intention. But Naruto danced joyful circles around him. Sasuke knew it. _Hated _it. Knew it.

You couldn't compete with that. Not with that kind of otherworldly brilliance.

The Hyuga were a good compromise, though, he thought. They were so high, they shone so brightly, but there was order and tradition and control to their ways. They weren't like Naruto, who could do _anything _at any moment, who could spiral completely out of control just a heartbeat or breath's space away. They were closer, Sasuke thought, to what he wanted, to what he could accept. He'd thought- and raged at length- about how _fucking Naruto_ was closer, Naruto had the power that could take Itachi, extinguish him completely, just fucking _snuff him out. _Naruto could blast Itachi into dust. Sasuke could only flail for Itachi's hand and pull him down, maybe land a few scratches, not even manage to irritate his brother.. and he couldn't get angry right now, not with Hinata right next to him, so he bit hard at the side of his lip.

It felt good, punishment. Clean, absolute. Right.

That was the way. Maybe. The Hyuga. He could become better then Itachi, beat Itachi at his own game. Supersede him.

He was doing it.

He realized it.

He was moving, changing, altering his plans, he was-

There was nothing left in him to throw up. He wasn't going out in that fucking storm again, not even to throw a fit, not even to purge _this _feeling, no. He was going to move forward, he was going to _realize _this, and it didn't mean that he was losing his way, it didn't mean that he was _losing everything, _it didn't mean that he wasn't going to kill Itachi, he was getting _closer, _he was getting better and stronger, he had to move through this panic, he had to hold fast, he had to-

Breathe. Stay. Change.

Somehow. Rest his eyes, invite sleep, tempt fate. Just let fate move him, and not ruin the timing and reflex with too much thought. Just let her.. let her save him.

But he had to do something. That was for certain.

----------------------------------------------------------

Hinata couldn't understand why she was not crying. She pulled on Sasuke's sleeve, twisting it nervously in her hands. She still wasn't crying. Her eyes were dry. Why couldn't she cry? _Why wasn't she crying?_

Darkness flowed over Sasuke as he bent to toss more wood into the fire. When he leaned down, his loose shirt fell down his shoulder. She saw something on his neck, a dark angry smudge. It bled charka, she could _see, _black photonegative chakra, solar-white against the darkness.

"Sasuke-kun.." she whispered.

He turned. He said it was sannin-Orochimaru-sama's mark. This was Orochimaru's claim on him.. and.. he put her fingers on it and she gasped, as if burnt. It buzzed and _moved, _it rippled like a bursting nest of insects. Hinata yanked her hand back.

Sasuke caught her hand in his. "It's just genjutsu."

"Genjutsu just from touching it?" she whispered, looking up at him in alarm.

Firelight moved over his face. Soft shadows. There was a sad kind of amusement in his eyes. "Yes." he said.

But what... what on earth was it _like, _then, being with that man, his sensei? Being under his hand and subject to him.. Hinata couldn't imagine.. she couldn't even begin to think of what it must be like. She pressed her cheek into his chest and quivered. She was grateful when he hugged her tightly. "I think that you _must _get away from him," she whispered in a rush. "You must.. I know I have no right to.. but.. _Sasuke-kun.." _her voice was shaking. The tears were coming. Finally...

In a confused rush. A long slide. She felt her shoulders buckle. She felt that maybe.. maybe Sasuke would rather she didn't get him all wet with tears, not again. Not twice in one night.

But Sasuke pulled her tighter. His hands were insistent on her shoulders, around her back. A tear rolled down her nose and onto his chest, a bare patch of skin above the loose collar of Neji's robe-shirt. "I'm sorry..." she whispered.

"Don't be." he said, softly, above her.

She didn't remember falling asleep.

Towards morning... Sasuke was taking care of things. He was being what she should be. Strong and resolute.

Hinata was feeling numb. And hollow. There was nothing in her, not even the chakra signal of her heart. It she were to use her byakugan in the mirror now, she'd see nothing. A shadow of flesh. She touched her hands, seeing if they were still there. Tears came, but there was nothing behind them. She didn't know... what... what could be done. What could she do? When her mother had died, she'd been only five years old. She'd been unable to think. She hadn't _had _to. Sasuke handled the papers. He read them to her. The legal details flowed over her and slipped out of her numb fingers. She was the executrix and the heir. The lawyers would come, the _family _would come. Hinata would have to stand strong and face them. She tried to feel something. The tears running down her face... Nothing. All her insides were scooped out.

"Gutted," Sasuke said, distantly, when he asked her if she was feeling better, and she mumbled a lame answer. "I remember it." She was safe in his arms. He was reading the letter from her father's lawyer, about the estate. He said something to her, then. She tucked it away for later, with a fumbling hand. She went to wipe her eyes and her fingers slipped over her face.

"I'll be nineteen in July," Sasuke had said. "Until then, the Uchiha estate is held in trust for me.." Hinata thought distantly that this should mean something to her.

"I'm.. I'm _sorry.." _she whispered, mortified. "I'm sorry.. I.. I can't.."

"I will tell you that it's all right," he said to her, soft and calm. "..as many times as necessary." The affection was there, warm and comfortable. In his voice... at just that moment. Hinata thought that maybe she could sleep. But she couldn't. Her eyes just kept leaking. Her insides puckered closed, like they were mourning their own losses. It still felt like her father was out there, somewhere. He would come home. The family would be there, and he would be there too.

Morning came. Slowly. In slow breaking waves.

-----------------------------------------------------------

What he wanted. It was worth thinking about, because this was the way Orochimaru operated.

Sasuke had suspected that Orochimaru would twist his arm. _At least, _surely, Orochimaru would blackmail him. Maybe Orochimaru would simply snatch him and sell him back to the Hokage. Orochimaru would certainly cut out his sharingan, right? Try to learn it's secrets? Probably while Sasuke was still alive, because everyone knew that _that _would be far more fun. And that smirky little fucker Kabuto would hold Sasuke down while Orochimaru gouged out Sasuke's eyes. Right? Of _course, _Orochimaru was a criminal. That's what criminals _did. _Just ask Sasuke's father.

Orochimaru did none of these things.

Instead, Orochimaru played games.. and told jokes. He liked to tell Sasuke _jokes, _it was bizarre. _None _of them were funny.

"Ah, you have no sense of humor, Sasuke-kun." Orochimaru said lazily. Orochimaru liked to dress up in women's clothes. Sasuke thought that this was odd, yes, but Orochimaru also liked to wear women's makeup. Orochimaru liked to wear _women's underwear, _and then one day Sasuke turned around and Orochimaru _was _a woman, he had possessed a female body.

Or _something. _God only knew.

Orochimaru also did a lot of amateur medical research, from the looks of the sub-basements. The sounds coming up from those stone halls at all hours of the day were still impossible for Sasuke to describe, even after six years of in-depth education in sound magic.

And torture was just torture. He'd been taught, as much as one could be taught- to withstand it. That was basic academy training. But what Orochimaru was doing to those people...

Orochimaru knit his jade-tipped fingers and said patiently that no, Sasuke simply did not understand the scientific method. "If I have fifty rats, I force-feed ten to death, feed ten a lighter dose, so on." Fifty people, villagers of all ages, since Orochimaru didn't discriminate for age or gender. Fifty gruesome deaths. A wave of Orochimaru's ornate hand.

There was also the sex. If you could call it that.

It wasn't rape. Sasuke had decided that. And, also, it wasn't as if Orochimaru had to _force _him exactly, was it? He didn't consent. He didn't _not _consent. He stayed silent. He let Orochimaru do what he wanted. Consent by default, maybe. It wasn't rape and Sasuke wasn't going to claim it was, even if it would improve his clemency case to the Hokage.

There was actually a good chance that it might.

He was busy thinking of his father, too. Legalities. Probably because of Hinata's father, and the complicated legal documents her family had sent with the notification of death. There would be lawyers coming as well. The house would be full of Hyuga with _lawyers. _Sasuke wasn't sure if he wanted to stick around to see that or not.

Secretly, he sort of liked lawyers. Judges. His father had taken him to the village tribunals once or twice. It had been a rare treat. He'd stared at the judge's gavel, trying to work up the courage to ask his father if he could bang it down himself. Just once. Decision made, no quibbles- _wham! _He liked that. He _still _liked that. He was smiling even though he was also thinking of Orochimaru, and _that _pissed him off.

But the thing that annoyed him most about Orochimaru was the way Orochimaru _played. _You couldn't say that he strategized, that he attacked... Orochimaru didn't seem to have actual goals and plans so much as appetites.. whims. Impulses, perfect reflexes that worked on people emotionally the way Sasuke's trained sword arm snapped, perfectly timed. Supernaturally timed. Orochimaru just had that knack for it. He could twist people. Catch their interest. Use them.

Sometimes Orochimaru would get into a particular mood and decide that he was a 'predator', and it would all be predators and prey for the next few hours. But no, Orochimaru was a game player. He was a _fucking conman _to be exact. Sasuke watched him work. Sasuke watched him hand the choices to his victims, let _them _choose. Orochimaru never lifted a painted finger. Orochimaru made _them _come to him.

Sasuke really had expected Orochimaru to just beat him half to death then pull him out of the exam. Why shouldn't he? Orochimaru was far stronger then anyone in Konoha. Sasuke had been ready for it. He'd been puzzled when Orochimaru simply _bit him _and left. It hadn't made sense to him.

Choose, Orochimaru said. _The choice is yours, Sasuke-kun._

It was ridiculous that he'd go with a creature like Orochimaru. He wasn't even sure if Orochimaru was human at all. He wasn't sure that Orochimaru hadn't just been some exceptional genjutsu cooked up by another genin team. He'd fallen into the seal's fever, sweated and twisted in nightmares on the forest floor. Woken up dizzy and half-delirious to stand his match in the second round. And he'd won. He remembered Sakura pulling on his sleeve... not understanding him. Not understanding him at all, or what he had to do, what this _all _was for.

It had seemed strange, at that moment, to find her purely irritating again. That wasn't how he'd felt, hours ago. Days ago, at the forest gate. Across the swirling bridge of nightmares. He wasn't thinking. That was probably the last time he thought clearly at all.

_Choose, _Orochimaru said, but he burnt this mark in, stacked the deck. Sasuke knew something of a how a permanent jutsu mark worked. The perfect singularity of it's purpose. This one, the seal of heaven, lay right over major nerve clusters. Those that descended to the body, the cranial nerves snaking up just behind them. To say that it had it's poison roots twisted into his nervous system would be to state the blindingly _obvious. _He hadn't thought clearly since it had been put in. He hadn't really been himself, had he?

He'd felt it's slow poison trickle through his spine. He'd looked at Naruto and Sakura and felt himself recede from them. The closeness vanished. Choose, Orochimaru said. But was any of it a free choice?

Conversely. Was he truly innocent in any of it? The seal turned upon his will. The cursemark moved with his worst nature. All of it lay in his hands. He chose. He went. His demons defeated him, and Orochimaru won. Just as Orochimaru said he would. _He'll seek me for power. _Like Orochimaru knew beforehand, it was all predestined.

So it was worth thinking about, what he wanted. Because Orochimaru was all about the roll of the dice. Choose, he said. _Choose._

Sasuke had to think about what the hell he wanted. What side he was on. He put his hand over the heaven seal and knew it was time to make that final choice.

---------------------------------------------------

"This will help." Sasuke whispered in her ear. He was sitting behind her, she was perched in his lap. He was kneading her shoulders. Distracting her. She was semi-conscious that this was... the exact method she had used before. The simple applied chakra manipulation she'd used on him. She'd learned it from Sakura, who wanted to see what she could do with it. Sasuke had even figured out the chakra point acupressure. Hinata wanted to know how he did that. She couldn't figure that out.

"The sharingan." he said, close to her ear.

He really did have a warm, soft voice when he wanted to. When he wasn't hunching it down into a hissing low register.

"This is to distract you," he said, with firm authority. "Concentrate on this instead. Your body, and your dreams. Nothing can change what has happened, Hinata."

She was overwhelmed, too, by the closeness. The chakra signals of his hands, his heart and blood moving behind it. The intricate electrical glimmers that danced silently all around him. She held the byakugan at half-mast. She just listened to him, still numb. Wet, soggy, and numb. Gutted. Hollowed out.

"Hinata." he said, pausing on her name. "Nothing can change it. You'll feel better if you think of something else."

She sniffled and pressed yet another sodden kleenex to her pink, swollen nose. She hid her face in his lap, in the folds of his pants. "But.. I can't think of anything else." she whispered. "I can't forget. I don't _want _to, my father..."

"Shh." His firm, gentle hand on the back of her neck. Stroking away the tension with a precise touch of his forefinger to the exact spot. "You won't forget. Don't worry. Hinata, you can let go. Nothing will ever make you forget."

She sniffled and tried not to cry, and listened to him. Full circle, she thought. I was doing this. I was trying to comfort him, saying meaningless things. And now he does this for me...

It was hard to believe. It was still a shock that he liked her. Not just in the brief, callous way that men seemed to like women, people seemed to use one another, out in the world beyond. He would do this for her. He _wanted _to do this for her. There would be no other reason. Sakura had told her, Naruto had told her. She'd never been in their team, but she'd been close to it for long enough. Sasuke was not a sensitive person. He was not a particularly caring person. He was doing this for her, unasked. Unrewarded. She was just lying in a pathetic lump, crying. He liked her. It was new. Frightening. It couldn't be denied or doubted for a moment longer.

But she couldn't _do _anything. She couldn't hold up her end of the silence. She couldn't bolt in nervous terror. She listened. Sasuke said that she should be aware of her body, build intense awareness of it. "Train." he said. "Meditate." And he stroked the chakra as it moved through her, pulling her mind away, he said. Relaxing her. He said she'd feel better, then. Her body would take over. He said that he'd stumbled upon this as a child. He'd trained every day. On the day after the massacre, he trained as usual. He said it comforted him. "When you're feeling better," he told her softly. "we'll spar."

Right now, he said, he wanted her to dream.

She couldn't think of what. She said that she remembered her dreams, but-

He stopped her. He said he wanted her to tell him about thing things she'd dreamed of. The dreams that had shaped her life. As a child. As a young teenager. And now, as an adult.

"I wanted to be like my father," she whispered. "I wanted to be the Hyuga clan's heir."

"You _are _the Hyuga heir." he said, firmly. "That's what you are. Tell me what you want to become."

But she couldn't touch that part of herself. She was too numb.

"Then sleep," he said. Tiredly, she thought.

"I'm sorry." she whispered.

"I said," he told her, with gentleness, she thought "to not be." He kissed her cheek. It did make her feel a bit better. She still felt.. strangely.. irrationally convinced that her father was.. well. She knew that he father was dead. But he didn't feel dead, to her. She could imagine him coming home. She could picture meeting him at the gate. It felt almost likely. But her eyes were falling closed. Sasuke was running his hand lightly over the skin of her neck. She felt the flare as he nudged the sleep point. But only that, nothing else after.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Sasuke knew it was a facade of calm, and it was a faulty one, besides. He lost it anyway. Deep in the early morning. Hinata was resting. The clocks had stopped, but it must have been around four am.

He smashed his fist against the tile floor of the kitchen. The cut in his hand ripped itself open- _good!, _he thought, savagely. Good! Blood dripped from under his clenched fingers. He drove his hand into the floor again. It hurt. _Good! _

He knew what was going on!

He knew exactly what the problem was. He was _thinking _of _abandoning _his fucking _mission._

Which was everything. He was losing it.

Orochimaru was shaking him. Getting too far in, starting to mess around with something other then his body, things that actually mattered.

That fucking _snake_. He'd thought this might happen.

Or maybe it was Hinata, but he couldn't bring himself to curse her. She was a bystander. She'd acted in compassion, in rightness of her inner moral compass. She felt her attraction in response to his. He couldn't hate her for just feeling and acting as her heart dictated. He couldn't hate himself- _much-_ for letting her.

The whole mess was unavoidable, all parts converging, like a high-speed collision.

But. Maybe.

Maybe the Hyuga were something he could understand. They had what he needed. He heard the lines of intention forming behind Hinata's words, imagining as she spoke that all those lines were crystallizing into the perfect focus of her byakugan. That she would see clearly and strike true.

..he could believe that. She would do what she said.

Maybe he should just breathe deeply, hold still, and let her.

And that concluded that fit. Having done so, he washed his bloodied hand off in the sink, splashed water onto his face and got himself sorted out enough to go back upstairs. It was warmer there. The wind was whispering again, like the conversational voices of dead spirits. He found Hinata turned onto her side, pressing her little cheek into the pillows he'd placed under her. Hinata's expression had changed, and now there was a hint of sorrow to it. The knowledge had come into her dreams, he thought. She had remembered, even as she dreamt. He couldn't stroke that away from her, but he could hold her carefully. He could reassure her, too, in her dreams. He could let her know that he was there.

He got the blanket around them, and she shifted, but didn't wake. Settling back against the cushions, he thought again that this was a worry. Being here. Night was a bad time for him in general.. but...

At least, that had been the first nightmare. Just an old snatch of memory, imprinted terror. The snapshot of the kunai flying, the skin-crawling illusion of death, but.. That was hidden. It was only implied. He forced his body to relax, breathing slowly, methodically. An easy nightmare this time. Just the snake.

Not for nothing. He was closest then, in the forest. Closest to resurfacing. He had the memories, sharingan-bright and sharp. The vivid white of Naruto's eye, the sheen of sweat on Sakura's pale face. The grass-nin breathing hotly down his neck... Naruto coming out of the trees like a bolt of barbed sunlight. All of it, too, colored with the slow burn of his own clumsy affection. It had just been starting then. He had just been beginning to feel it, and realize it. He remembered Sakura, warm and alive in his arms as he tore away from the grass-nin, Naruto just a heartbeat behind.

Just the three of them, together. They were almost... _almost.. _healing him. In the fractured second before Orochimaru lazily descended. Ripped that hope to shreds.

He'd known that he shouldn't think of this. He couldn't _stop, _having started.

It was so fucking _raw, _still. After six years! He wasn't supposed to be this sentimental.

But he wasn't supposed to be an emotionless sadist, either, was he? That wasn't what he'd been, as child. Before.

Back, then. Back to the beginning.. where it had all begun. The forest. The closeness of his team. He swore he'd never become a believer, but he had. They'd grown on him. Like a fungus, Sasuke thought, and grimaced. He still missed them... he didn't know how he'd face them. Which would hurt more... the hope and love in Sakura's eyes or the desperation and anger in Naruto's. There had been love in Naruto's eyes, too... at the waterfall. It had scared the _shit _out of him.

After that, too.. when they bounced him from his bedroom in Otokagure. What a waste of time and energy _that _had been. What a fatal mistake.. It had taken him weeks to steady himself again. To put his porcelain kabuki mask face back in place. Painted-on eyes. Orochimaru hovering over him, careful with the paintbrush. Painting, he remembered, his nails. Painting his nails ivory black. By candlelight. In the mausoleums under thousands of dead formaldehyde eyes.

The snake.. he thought, in the fire-lit present. He hadn't wanted it. He'd been terrified, the first time he saw it. He'd felt his heart drop into his stomach when the snake had yawned wide, oceans of sickening wet pink opening under him. He'd ran.. and actually.. he remembered fully now. He'd panicked. Naruto had caught him at it. Taunted him. Thrown that stupid throwaway insult back in his face. _Scaredy-cat! Ha! _Naruto hadn't understood _anything..._

And it didn't do him a damn bit of good, any of this. So he turned to the hard facts. The legalities of Hinata's estate.

It was sort of soothing.. all the legal terminology. Cut and dried. Nonwithstanding clauses. Clean articles of faith.. of who owned what.. of how things should be.

Fantasy, too. Fantasies fading in, around the edges. Like soft flower scent. He thought he'd placed it, actually. She smelled like lavender. Ginger. The other one, the one that had been hardest to place... and it made him smile, remembering it. Chamomile.

They could... he could. They'd find a way. If he could destroy his life against all odds, snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, surely he could rebuild it, too.

A million hidden, mysterious, invisible hands moving and changing the atmosphere, altering the world around him. Trying to change his heart, trying to get at him, where Orochimaru could not. The whole fucking world now, trying to save him.

Or maybe, just deigning to offer him a chance.

But if he did that, if he let go... it he even moved an inch, he could lose his way. Nothing would make sense. Nothing _did _make sense, but at least his life worked in a way that pulled him together and pushed him forward. Itachi's death would solve something that would bring him nothing, but he just couldn't live without it.

And Sasuke was still going to kill him. That was everything. That was what he _was._

Avenger. He'd avoided talking to Hinata about vengeance. What was the point? It was his. It was something that existed outside the warmth and affection of her world. Vengeance was here to stay, he was just here for a visit.

But anger wouldn't come to save him and force him to leave. Nothing would. So he was an avenger... she was a reformer. Which of them would do more damage? It wasn't too hard to think about. It almost felt good. To imagine there was someone who would understand, someone who was like him.

He'd hated that the most. Being _alone. _In every way...

And the time for recriminations was turning short. The time was drawing near. There was only so much time to work with...

The decision was made. He only had to take the steps. Seal the agreement, like an inkstone stamp. Like his name on the contractual line. Lock himself in, make it so he _couldn't _go back. He wanted that. He wanted _her. _More then Orochimaru.. more then more pain. Itachi would still die, he'd deal with that. But he wanted it. Her. _This. _He thought that maybe he could handle that. And he knew one way.

----------------------------------

Hinata sat like a numb, useless little girl and watched Sasuke made coffee. He was still able to function and be calm. She watched him hang the kettle, boil the water. She watched him flip the lightswitch back and forth once, scowling. Outside the storm was silent, the darkness was all-consuming.

The seal ached. Sasuke efficiently dismantled the coffee machine and poured hot water though the paper filter. holding it in line with the glass pot. He washed it out in the icy cold tap water after, running his finger over the stained ring on the bottom, grimacing.

"I don't know what I'm going to do," Hinata murmured, watching him.

"That's natural." he said, after a long moment.

"I..." she whispered, staring down into the steaming ring of her cup. The bubbles moved, bunching up against one another. Heat moved in waves.. the world went on, just as Sasuke had said. And soon the sun would rise, she couldn't believe he was gone. She couldn't believe she'd never see her father again- and she was crying again, weeping over her coffee. She felt so _useless... _

Sasuke hugged her through the blanket he'd put around her shoulders. Carefully, he nudged her hair away from the hot liquid with precise fingertips. "Hinata." he said, warm and real against her ear. "You don't have to do anything. I'll take care of you."

I'll stay. I'll protect you. I'll be with you. I'll take care of you.

"Is that enough.. will that be enough?" he'd whispered, after he'd said that. He sounded so.. young. Like he hoped against hope. Hinata had just dissolved into useless tears again.

"It's all right." he whispered. He squeezed her tightly. "It's _all right..." _

Morning faded in. Hinata could imagine, remember, mornings like this. Winter mornings in her calm, ordered house. The sound of the radio murmuring high and electrical from the kitchen. The damp incandescent lights, steamed from the pots boiling on the stove. Hanabi would be there, sometimes, back when she still wanted to get up early, she was so excited to go to school. Hanabi loved being a ninja... Hinata was crying again. Everything made her cry, now.

Sasuke put the papers away. He told her he'd handle it, he'd talk to the lawyers for her. He said that his father had taught him how to deal with the district attorney.. he remembered by example.

"...what?" Hinata had whispered miserably, half-blinded with tears.

"My father was a policeman." Sasuke whispered. "Maybe I will be one, too.." he released her, went to tend the kettle again. He was making miso soup for them. His hands already smelled faintly of dried seaweed. Things had been going too fast before. Now they were soundless. Still. The morning hung on a long moment.

"What... what time is it?" Hinata asked, finally. She was dabbing at her eyes with one of the damp tissues. She was leaving them everywhere.

Sasuke reached over and gently pushed back the sleeve of her jacket, then the mesh cuff under it. Hinata couldn't see the hands of her watch, just it's cut crystal face, tilted on angle. "Quarter to six." he said.

"My family.." she whispered, wet and damp and horribly stupid, too stupid and little to deal with this.

"Don't worry about that." Sasuke said to her, softly. She felt him smooth the hair from the side of her face. His hands could be so gentle.. she was already crying.. she couldn't cry harder. "I'll handle them." Sasuke said. "Hinata.. really." The gentle brush of his lips on her forehead. "I'll take care of you."

Hinata just curled herself up into a dripping, sniffling little ball. "I... I _know." _she whispered, her voice shaking. "I know." Her eyes were sore and wet, she closed them and found his arm by touch. She ran her fingers up over his shoulder, gently. Found the burn mark, where his sensei's mark had been...

He let her touch it. He relaxed in her arms as she did. She had to realize it over and over again, that this was real. That he _really meant it. _He wasn't going back.. maybe, maybe he _really _wasn't going back...

She'd been there, awake. When he came to her out of the lower level, melting into the fire's light. It had touched his cheek, first. The hard lines of his face. The soft sparkle of his dark eyes. She'd never seen that look on his face before. It had stopped her. She was still numb then.

He told her what he wanted to do. He explained it very calmly. Very precisely. Hinata watched as he pulled down the zipper of her coat, kneeling before her. She forget to catch her breath as his fingers whispered through the inner pockets. He found the hidden kunai she kept there, and it gleamed in the shadow between them. Hinata had turned her eyes and saw the bottle of vodka he'd left on the floor at her feet. She looked back at him.

She had touched his hair, his face.. his shoulder, where the seal burned into him. "It hurts, doesn't it?" she'd said. "It must be eating into you.. constantly..."

"That's right." he said. He put the kunai into her hand.

But what a strange way.. to take a vow. To seal an agreement. To lock his destiny to hers, seal it in blood. She had whispered that, not caught herself from speaking her thoughts in time. And he'd turned, haloed in the firelight. He'd nodded, once. His strange, soft half-smile. Like in that moment, in the cold dying magic of the night and the storm, the fire turning red behind him... Hinata could see the boy he had been. Before his sensei, his brother.. before the dark hands had come out the night.

"But it will hurt," she'd argued, even as he was tearing Neji's shirt into strips. "You'll bleed.. It's right on your neck, we'll have to move the rug.." She'd put her hand to the back of her own neck, the same spot. Felt how thin the skin was there. "I'll hurt you.." she whispered.

"You've sharpened it recently." he said, gesturing to the kunai in her hand. With one motion he'd twisted the cork out of the bottle. "You can sterilize it in the kettle." he added.

"But, if you bleed too much.."

"If you heat the blade in the fire then you can cauterize it," he said, raising the bottle. Very calmly, she thought. Like he found some strange hint of peace in this. "You'll have to do it. I can't do it with chidori, my hand will shake."

He was tipping the bottle back, the long white column of his throat was rippling, as he drank. The vodka bottle glistened crystal and ice-clear in the shifting firelight. "It will hurt too much." he said, the weight of the bottle pulling his hand down to his side, no grace or control in that motion. "I'll just induce a seizure.. I'll bleed out.." grimly, his voice tight and focused. And his eyes lost in the shadows, one little glint of firelight in each, as he stood on an angle to her, his dark hair falling onto his white neck, the black smudge blooming like dark petals under it.

"You'll pass out.." she whispered.

"Yes.." he said, with a strange half-smile. "Just like when it was made."

"But it will hurt so much.." she said, suppressing a shiver. "People go into shock, when this happens in the field, when you have to cut white phosphorus and barbs out of them.. Sasuke-kun.." She didn't want to hurt him. He seemed to see that. He bent to pick up the bottle again. He held it up, showing it to her. The level had gone down to the half-mark. There was a glistening of wetness on his lips, even in half-shadow.

"It won't hurt as much now," he said, shrugging. He almost.. almost smiled.

"...okay.." she'd said, finally. She'd gotten up. Her heart was muttering, moving somewhere, rushing behind the numbness. "Okay." she'd whispered. She wound torn cotton around the kunai's handle and held it in the flames. She did what he said.

------------------------------------------------

Hinata balked, as he expected she would, when he asked her to cut out the seal.

She also relented. He expected that too. He was beginning to be able to read her backwards and forwards, understand her in a way that was more then skin deep.

He was drunk, pleasantly drunk, when she did it. He knelt before her and leaned over her lap. She braced her fingers against his shoulder. He could feel the heat of the blade even as she held it over his skin, preparing herself. She wanted to know if he wanted her to count down, to warn him.

"No," he told her. "Just do it."

Two cuts. One deep, one _very _deep, scraping bone. His shoulders twisted, he had to knot his muscles up to keep still, and it made it hurt more. Pain was like that, unimaginable. You couldn't hold it in your mind, you couldn't be ready for it.

The smell hit him first, just ahead of the pain. The smell of burning flesh. She held the flat of the kunai hard against the wound. Cauterizing it, like he'd told her. He quivered under her searing hand, shaking right through. His shoulder blades twitched, skittery reflex. He was pressing up, pressing harder against the hot blade. It _hurt. _He had to bite down on a scream. It did what he wanted, _hurt _so badly. Made it feel right.

Somehow, he didn't lose consciousness. Hinata cast jutsus over him, pressing icy hands to the burn. He heard her sharp intake of breath.. knew that it must look horrible. She bandaged him up with the strips of his shirt. He sat on the couch and drank the rest of the vodka, feeling the heat of the fire soak into his bare chest. Felt perversly pleased. His arm was useless, though. Stiff and agonized right down to his fingertips. But it had done what he'd wanted.

Pain was satisfying. It made things real to him. It made _this _real. It proved to himself that yes- _yes. _He really was going to do this. Orochimaru would come, and Sasuke would anticipate that. But Sasuke was _not going back to him. _Orochimaru could handle it. Let _him _do the footwork for a change. He did pass out, finally. Dreamt of nothing. Just the way he liked.

He was still a bit buzzed when he woke. Hinata was staring into the fire again. His hands were clumsy, but he pulled her to him. He read through the paperwork again. The hangover only poked at him, disinterested, as morning began, slowly, to happen. Behind the scenes.. He felt almost good. He felt almost hopeful. He felt like this just might be _right. _It hurt, just the way it should. He saw to that. Now he could deal with Hinata and act the way he should, as well.

Not.. that it was all right, though. Him. He was still himself. And he knew something about this. Every clumsy connection he made was built on the foundation of the others.

If. If this were to go further. It would be built upon...

Naruto. Itachi.

And Orochimaru, who'd squirmed his way in, one way or another.

Complicated, violent, difficult relationships with, ultimately, other boys and men, all of whom were just as fucked up and sick and filthy as he was, who he could scream and rage and tear at. He could do anything.

She would be his first. He didn't like doing things without preparation. He'd tried- contemplated trying- with Sakura, close to the end when he felt her and Naruto starting to change his heart, when he wanted them, maybe, to come closer, heal him just a bit more, finish it. He'd thought... maybe he should let Sakura come close. She was too loud, but she was smart. She was strong, too, in ways that he hadn't noticed. She had more sense then he and Naruto did. He'd thought about how that could be done, then... Orochimaru came. Itachi reappeared. It was all over.. it all just sped off to hell. But the point was, he didn't really know how to be involved with women. He warned Hinata of this, and she nodded. She'd been warned. She accepted him anyway...

So.. maybe. Maybe it would be all right.

He watched her sleep. She drifted in and out of consciousness. His blood was still on her hands, watery with the alcohol. She'd used it to cool and disinfect the burn, poured it over her hands, too. Anointing them. It formed a strange ritual. His heart given, maybe.. by his blood on her hands, the poisoned flesh she'd cut out of him. That was his sort of ceremony. That was a vow he could take, it would almost mean more then a ring.

And he'd have the money, too, when he was nineteen. He could do this properly. Buy her a decent one. He could make some sort of case to her family... and he knew he was getting way.. _way.. _ahead of himself. She hadn't even.. even. He sighed, calming himself, quieting his racing thoughts.

It was done. He was trapped, now. He couldn't go back. He _had _to move forward. He clenched his fists, felt the jab of agony flash up his arm, the weak shuddering after-echo of pain in the muscle. His entire body was shocked, still. It drowned out the noise in his head, as he'd planned. Just like he wanted.

Hinata woke up and sealed it. Her way. Perfectly. Gentle fists. No cause and no warning.. And it was done, he was _finished. _He would do this. He had to. He was done.

------------------------------------------------------

Hinata thought that she'd spent the entire night with a soaked tissue in her hand.

Sasuke followed her and picked them up, without comment. Without complaint, putting them in the steel wastebasket under the sink, in the kitchen. The tall green candles in the little practice room were burning down. Morning was coming. Sasuke was there, now, moving through a morning kata, keeping one eye on her, she knew. Even when she ducked out of sight. When she went to make them tea, because she couldn't stand doing nothing. She couldn't just sit in a sodden heap on the tatami mat he'd unrolled for her, watching him move with such sharp, sudden _grace._

"Sasuke." she said, when she returned with the tray. Forgetting the honorific. She planned _nothing. _She discussed nothing with him. She didn't even know if he wanted this... All that talk of lawyers and estates and planning.. her family rising with the sun, far beyond the clouds, hidden in fading darkness, outside. Her half-finished cup of coffee going stone cold in the kitchen below. "Sasuke-kun," remembering the honorific. Still not self-possessed, or sure what she was doing. "I remember my vow.." she whispered. "I said.."

When she couldn't speak, he spoke for her. He filled in the silence. "You'll change the clan house. I remember." He moved through a flurry of perfect, crisp kicks. Even his injured arm moved with perfect rhythm, he moved it high, and out of the way. She saw the slow drag of the movement, but he moved _with _it, he made gravity work with him, not against it. Hinata hunched her shoulders and felt small and stupid. He'd want her to stop that. Having never been intimidated by him and his quicksilvery flashing talent before, he wouldn't want her to start now.

He wouldn't let her, as it turned out. He kept talking to her. Unhurried, easy. In his own quiet way, but in a way that he seemed to enjoy, a half-smile on his face. Contentment. As if he already had made all his decisions... Hinata blinked, watching. She felt lost.

"Yes.." she mumbled. Her throat was tight and groggy. She sniffled. She rummaged in her jacket pocket for another tissue. She must look absolutely horrible, she thought. Her nose and eyes all red from crying.. Almost no sleep... "I remember... too." she whispered.

"I know that you will do it," Sasuke said, quite matter-of-factly. "You are a sensible girl.. and more then that.." he snapped out punches, a kick, spin, perfect footwork. "..you _are _a strong person. Don't tell Naruto, but.." Kick. Shifted weight, snapped kick, into a long hard burst of taijutsu, out of the kata now, somewhere else, some heavenly higher plane created in his perfectly-trained body, perfect harmony of motion with his chakra. "..you're stronger then me..._." _he said, catching the landing. Clean and perfect. "As a person." he added. "If not as a fighter, and your taijutsu is quite good.. maybe if I trained you.." And moving again, moving in perfect rhythm, Hinata thought, with his thoughts. She could almost feel them.. feel them move together. Feel it all fall into place.

"That's not true." she whispered. Her shoulders hunched in embarrassment. She was blushing. Her entire face was red now. She blew her nose, shattering the moment, she thought.

But Sasuke only shook his head firmly. "No. It _is _true. I'll stay with you." He slid into the ready stance, smooth as silk, silent. Hinata watched him shape the half-darkness, all of it moving around him. "I think.. that you're what I need..." And he went on with the kata, a new one this time. It looked like a sword form. He had spoken as if this was a self-evident fact.. and quite normal, besides. As if he hadn't.. hadn't just... The ragged edge of the tissue stung her eyelids as Hinata wiped them.

"We'll wait for the sun to rise," Sasuke was saying. He was planning the entire day for them now. "The storm has broken, I think.. the front door is frozen shut. The power..." Moving. Still. "..it's still out. The power lines must be all down.. " And then, a bit hesitantly. "Hinata. Maybe.. " he straightened, and turned his lead foot, step-turning to face her across the polished wood floor. "Would you like to go for a walk? The ice will be everywhere, and no one will have seen it yet, or walked on the snow..."

With that note in his voice. Younger, freer, then anything she could have imagined she'd hear from him.

"After that, we'll wait for your family to return." he said. "I'll turn myself in..." he made a soft sound of irritation, the tenor of his voice changing just slightly, back down to the grim low mumble that had seemed so normal for him before. "..._dammit.. _fine, I'll go with Naruto.. and Sakura. They'll come here.. right..?" he looked up at Hinata, seeming to pull himself back up again. "I'll wait for them to come." he shrugged, almost easily. Almost relaxed. "...to pay their respects." Back to the kata. Kicks, punches. Perfect supernatural taijutsu.

"...just like that.?" she whispered, wide-eyed behind the soggy tissue she pressed to her nose and lips. "You'll stay with me, just like that?"

"There's nothing else to do." he said, as if this, too, was just a fact. On with the kata. Not even breaking stride. Hinata watched him, watched the seamless unbroken flow of his motions. He was so wickedly _fast. _The chakra moved through him like lines of bright fire. She could get lost in watching him, fall into the fiery scatters of chakra. She could forget so much, just watching him. He really was beautiful. Strong. Precise. Somehow, too, he was interested in her. A little white Hyuga mouse. What for? She sighed. She wiped at her eyes. She didn't have any tears left over for herself. She couldn't start crying when she was already crying. And her own little lowly self-esteem problems were so small. They were dull and everyday. She was distracted. She still couldn't help but feel that this, all of this, was a strange dream. She'd wake up, and feel the slow return of reality. Her father would still be alive. Of course he was still alive, out in the world beyond. That's what this felt like. And Sasuke was still moving.

"...and I want to do this." he said, almost in a whisper. An intake of breath. She was using her byakugan, his face was lost in chakra tangles. But she heard him.

There was no reason that she should have understood then. She'd spent the entire night weeping, buried too far under her damp teary numbness and the aching hole in her middle. She hadn't noticed that he had decided. And he'd done it without.. without anything from her. She'd just sat there and cried. No reassurance. She blinked at him. "You only have.. your confidence.." she whispered. "..right, Sasuke-kun? I haven't told you..."

He paused, easily, on his flexed bare feet. He turned and his dark eyes were almost soft. Patient, as they had been before. And she could see those traces of worry in him. The way she felt now, behind him. Emptied out, inside. Needing something. Being just too numb, too soaked-through with tears to even ask for it.

"I'm sorry." she said, soggily, weeping again. ".. you can stay.. I _want _you to stay. I want _you." _The words slipped on the tears. She was springing leaks everywhere. She couldn't feel if they were right or not. Whether this was exactly what he needed, or not. He just needed something. She tried.. She wiped at her wet cheeks with a handful of damp tissue.

She was sure she'd done it wrong, somehow. But there was no one else to do it for her.

She wasn't looking at him. It took so much effort to just force herself to speak, as if she had this authority. She heard Sasuke shift his weight, the floorboards springing back slightly in the sudden silence.

"But your father.. and mine."

"I don't care what my father would say! He was _wrong!"_

It hurt her throat to shout like that. Her voice was raw and hoarse with hours of crying.

"I don't care." she mumbled, daubing at her sore, wet nose. "I _don't care _what the family says... stay here. You're our blood... there must be something I can do.." she was too busy wiping her eyes. She wasn't looking at him. She didn't hear him move at all...

Until ...he was right beside her, his bent knees sliding slightly on the polished floor. His arms around her so tightly she couldn't breathe. He didn't say anything. She avoided his injured arm, tried to get her arms around his waist, but he had her so tight, she couldn't move. She could feel the quiver of his breath. Her heartbeat. His, pressing in on it.

"I can't go back." he whispered, close and warm.

"Then stay here." she mumbled gracelessly, her voice thick and worn out. "I.. I _want _you to stay. We'll take care of you.. too." She buried her face in the warm crush of his shoulder, the hollow of his neck. She could feel the heat of the burn, the thwarted tendrils of black chakra fading out, running in circles, fading away under his skin.

She wasn't sure if she should expect an answer. She was so tired. There was just nothing left to her, just a slip of a shadow, a little fading chakra ghost, a few tiny knots, unraveling. She didn't even seem to have any tears left. She wanted him to stay. She knew that she couldn't really hope for that.

"...I want you, too.. Hinata." he whispered.

And there was suddenly nothing else she could think of. He overwhelmed her senses. She thought it would just break her completely if she saw the look in his eyes as he said that. It would be too much, far too much. She just curled herself tightly into his chest, the warm skin of his neck. All the vital, strong chakra signals of his body. The person he was, hidden. But slowly coming into focus. The mystery of that...

He carried her upstairs, to the single paper room that marked the cottage's facade. He pulled back the screens, and the curtains, and she watched as he cast precise jutsus, exhaling waves of heat over the window. The frost evaporated, flowing like water, like receding tides.

"It isn't going to be easy." she whispered. "My family is going to be very angry. But.. I'll fight them."

"Because it's right." he said, watching her carefully. "...right? Not because.."

"No ...for you." she said, hunching her shoulders in embarrassment. "I want to do this for you!"

He kissed her then. A real kiss, deep and soft, gentle. His tongue swiping over hers. Even though she was red-nosed and her eyes were wet and swollen. And he was exhausted, bloodshot from the vodka, deep circles forming under his dark eyes. The both were tired, hurting, defeated. He held her so tightly that she could barely breathe, like he didn't want to let her go for an instant. She was still crying. She was getting him wet with her tears, even as he wiped them away. As she leaned up and reached for him, pulling him down into another kiss. His hand bleeding, his blood smearing on her cheek. Both of them must have looked horrible. It was the most romantic thing she could have ever imagined.

"Of course I'll stay." he said, a bit gruffly. "I have to. Someone has to protect you from your fucking _family, _Hinata. You're too nice. I'm going to teach you how to not be nice to people who don't deserve it-"

And the words died in his throat. He fell silent. He had to. She was kissing him, just as he'd kissed her. Like she didn't, and wouldn't, let go. Not for her family. Not for an instant.

She didn't, as he nudged her, and she opened her swollen eyes. He held her tucked under his chin, tightly cradled in his arms. He'd pulled open the drapes, melted away the frost. The storm had broken into a deep blue dawn over the line of snowy evergreens outside. There was a sudden change of light. A magical stillness of silence, sealing the promise.

The sun was rising fiery pink over a glittering blue world of ice.

"I can't be what you deserve, though." he said, tiredly.

She just held him tighter, locking one hand around her wrist, squeezing him hard. "I think I deserve you." she whispered, muffled against his shoulder. "And you deserve me."

He almost laughed. "It sounds like a threat... doesn't it?" He took her hand, pressed it to the hot angry tangle in his burnt shoulder. "Here's another." His fingers interlaced with hers, pressing her palm deep against the remains of the seal.

"I'm not leaving you." he said. "It's decided."


	11. Daylight

Hinata was exhausted, but would not admit it. She also did not want to talk, but felt obliged to. Sasuke really would have preferred to simply continue kissing her, that was easier and more direct then talking. But eventually the kisses alone were not enough to comfort her. She wanted to know about what the hell Sasuke thought he was doing...

Of course, she didn't use those words. That wasn't even her attitude, she was too kind to realize how crazy this was. There was nothing but relief and affection in her tone. But Sasuke figured that was the main thrust of what she was saying.

He was busy getting her back to the couch, since she needed to rest. He anticipated that she would push herself as far as possible. Also, he had his old memories of the stupid things he had done in his first few days after, when he was blinded with grief. He worked himself past exhaustion, doing it on purpose. It made him feel perversely better, more pain was a good salve for the guilt of feeling pain in the first place. He knew she must feel ashamed, and.. well, he didn't have the energy to really argue her into bed for her own good, anyway. He was tired. They both were tired. A whole houseful of irritating angry people were arriving soon and there was going to be a big loud village scandal right on their heels.

"The entire village is going to be screaming at us." he mumbled, trying to steer her away from the window with one arm. His seal-arm was numb and useless.

"But what will you do?" she said, wide-eyed and scattered, he saw, with fatigue and stress and the fine lines of grief wearing themselves into her. Being able to just _pick her up _would solve this problem instantly. But his arm wouldn't take any weight, he could barely lift it at all, the damn cursed chakra, or whatever it was.. it was flowing into the muscles. He'd have to get it fixed by an actual doctor. Maybe carving the seal out hadn't been such a brilliant idea after all.

So, half to distract her, and half to ease her worries, he told her again. She'd heard him the first time, but she was just worrying and upset. He could act like a decent person for five seconds, surely, ease her mind. So he told her that he would turn himself in and hope that the Hokage felt like forgiving him, and that Konoha was interested in taking it's ninth rookie back.

"...of course we are. You've done nothing wrong." she whispered, tired and unfocused. She was half-muffled, pressed against his shoulder.

"I've deserted the village and I've been trained by the man who killed the Third." he reminded her, as gently as he could. And he also went to that man willingly. He had almost killed Naruto- twice, and now that he thought about it, that first time Naruto _had_ said that there were several genin with him. And that second time, well...

"..I'd rather not talk about that." he muttered, and then changed the subject. "If my name is cleared, I'll..."

And he hadn't actually thought of what he'd do then. He blinked, and covered it quickly. Not that Hinata was nearly alert enough to notice. He got her to the couch, got her tucked into his arms, got the blanket back over them so they wouldn't freeze to death, the power was still out.

"I'll..." he frowned, and wondered if this was the right word. "...court you." And felt like a clumsy idiot for saying it, so he added, quickly, since this was a certainty: "I said that I would stay with you, and I will. I'll take care of you like I said."

Curled up in his arms, Hinata murmured tiredly about how her family might not approve, and how she would have the power to overwhelm their objections. She said that she would have a voice now. She was too tired, he noticed, to even sit upright. She had slowly collapsed against him. Now she was leaning her head over his lap. The folds of the heavy silk coat she had found for him had settled over her hair, he saw only the dark wave of it over his leg, her pale little fingers turned into the loose fabric of his pants.

But he didn't worry much about staying. It was a given, now, to him. He had made his mind up.

Now, he had only to get Hinata to rest. Then her family would come, and he would turn himself in. He would face Naruto and Sakura.. somehow. He was almost hoping that Kakashi would accompany them. Kakashi could keep a lid on the confrontation. At least, in Sasuke's memory, that was the way it had always been. He felt too out of practice in the intricate skill of dealing with Naruto to manage. But he would do it, it was decided. That was that.

And all the while as he tried to soothe her, Orochimaru's voice was hissing in his head.

_Are you still angry, Sasuke-kun?_

More than just the memory of genjutsu. Orochimaru's fingers penetrated deeply, he'd had six years of uninterrupted access to everything Sasuke was to do his worst.

It seemed to him that while he would stay, and he would try his best not to make Hinata completely miserable, he couldn't expect anything, really, to change. _Nothing can change it, _that's what he'd said to Hinata, talking about something else, but also talking about _this, _indirectly. Nothing could change him, nothing could make him stop feeling this way...

Whether he stayed, or went, or rotted in prison, or Itachi carved his throat out next time, or Orochimaru came for his pound of flesh, or the Hokage had him executed, or the ANBU took him apart in interrogation, or even if he managed to pay for his crimes and rejoin the village- either whichway. This was how it would be. There was nowhere he could go to escape from himself.

_How do you feel now?_

And after so long in that endless nightmare... was he ready to wake up? Would he be able to face what he woke up to?

_Still angry? Ah, you're always so angry._

He was already awake, already aware, hit in the gut with the aftermath, the stinging hangover of everything Orochimaru had done. So he thought. But there were plenty of dark spaces in his memory. Orochimaru had hovered over him with his hypnotist's golden disc, twisting and fracturing his sense of reality. He honestly had no idea about some parts of what he remembered, whether it was genjutsu, or a planted memory, or whether it was real.. and conversely, there were those empty spaces. Places when Orochimaru sat him down and dug his sharp painted fingernails in, stared hard into Sasuke's eyes and he felt himself falling, drifting. Orochimaru had played with possessing him for some time. Like a demon. Or a spoiled, bored, cruel child, for that matter. One who was in the habit of doing whatever he wanted _whenever_ he wanted and to whomever, for fun. Who even _knew _what Orochimaru had done.

And everything Sasuke had done himself. Not to forgot that. That would be of particular interest to his future interrogators, to be certain. They'd take apart his memory like the hunter-nins cleaned a kill, every disgusting secret would be laid bare. They'd excavate the gaps in his memory. They'd know everything he'd become, everything he'd done under Orochimaru's hand.

Sasuke was actually perversely looking forward to that. He'd like to find out himself.

_You're still angry, Sasuke-kun. _

Fine, he was. He was the same miserable bastard she'd pulled in before. But he wasn't going to ruin this. He wasn't going to let the goddamn _snake _slither in, he wasn't going to be like Orochimaru after all. He wasn't there yet. There was still a difference between them.

He held Hinata and watched the sun rise, and did his best to believe that. He could imagine it because of her, he could almost think that it would be possible. He was a bitter cynic, he wasn't the sort of person who believed in the healing power of love or any of that nonsense. But Hinata believed it, and Hinata was not a fool, she was not weak, and she had a lot more common sense than he did, clearly. Which of them was leading a good life, after all? Which of them was destroying themselves? He should trust her. He did trust her.. but...

Hinata was a romantic, he sensed that about her. Maybe she was soft-hearted, and maybe that was a great failing, but Sasuke was tired of hard-hearted people. At least at this moment, tired and half-drunk and completely wretched. Maudlin. Stupidly sentimental, maybe, feeling soft and recklessly affectionate, as if he had some clue how to be near people, how to show affection to them at all.

But Hinata was a pragmatist, her compassion was married to practicality. She'd have to be. He saw it for himself. He watched her drift between waking and sleep, stubbornly fight to stay awake. He had no byakugan, but maybe he could see too, see parts of her that she didn't show to the world. She had already let him come very close to her. Very close, closer than he would have advised her to allow. She'd told him things about her family that he knew would have to be inter-clan secrets. She had taken him into her confidence. Not for nothing, clearly...

And she thought he wasn't just Orochimaru's runaway apprentice, Itachi's lesser brother, the youngest and smallest and most worthless of his entire dead, cursed clan. She thought he was something better. She whispered, and the old woman had said.. that her family would reach out and catch him, they'd pull him under the sheltering roof of their house. He'd be reabsorbed into the Hyuga clan. It would be some ancestral return.. or something. He was too tired to think it through clearly. He was too tired to sneer and work up any decent anger about having to crawl back to his clan's progenitors, a pathetic runaway orphan.

And Hinata thought better of him. She thought enough of him to allow him to be close to her. She didn't push him away. He kissed her again, tilting her chin up, just to feel her warmth against him, to feel the soft touch of her breath, to see again, reassure himself. She didn't push him away, or mention how he was somehow acceptable because he reminded her of better things. She murmured tiredly, and put her warm arms around him... and he really should have just stopped fussing about this. Accepted it.

She believed he could come back from the edge. She believed he was worth saving. She believed it. Why couldn't he?

------------

Together, alone in the lower level of the tea cottage, Hinata had watched Sasuke.

They were in the enclosed clay-framed practice room, far away from the dawning sun. The candles were burning down, then.. and in the half-second before he noticed, and looked up and his dark, sharp eyes took over, she _saw_ him. In these unguarded moments, when traces of emotion would show on his face, as subtle as it was... He wasn't silent, emotionless or cold. He was cryptic. You had to pay attention. She did, watching the momentary flash of chakra, his fire-halo pattern dancing all around him. He stood pausing after the last motion of the kata, his arms down by his sides, his shoulders slightly collapsed. Weighted down.. and his head slightly bowed, his dark hair falling into his face. Blackness. Black chakra leaking from the bloodied mess of his seal.

He must have seen her byakugan's invisible lights, he looked up, startled alert, flicked the hair out of his eyes.

It was time.

Hinata thought that somehow, she was drawing closer to this decision, as if she was just waiting to be able to justify it to herself.

It would be right, and simple to just take advantage of this time. Wouldn't it?

But she was tired and she simply sat still and watched. Sasuke took her in his arms and lifted her to her feet. He took her upstairs to see the sun, then he wanted to put her to bed.

So she found the hidden keys and unlocked the genjutsu that hid the lowest level of the tea cottage. There was a bedroom down there, an inscribed bathhouse. They could rest. There were windows, where they could see the rising sun, a bank of windows pointed flush east..

Another day dawning, a new Hyuga sun. Her tired thoughts tripped over one another and into silly fancies. A new sun, one set down and gone into darkness.. passed into death, and now she almost thought she could feel her father's hand on her shoulder, as if his spirit moved in the strange feeling of the morning air. As if they could be together, as they never were in life. She could become him.

But Sasuke was a clear, sharp reality, right in front of her, and he grounded her. She felt dizzy and tired and light-headed, but he got her downstairs, he got her into bed. She was too tired and she was perfunctory, she thought, just grasping his sleeve silently and gently pulling him down with her, when he politely turned to sleep elsewhere...

And after that, it was almost as if she was already dreaming. Everything moved in slow, heavy silence. She watched Sasuke shake the silk comforter out with tired, slow byakugan eyes. Every crease that rippled through the fabric shone vividly, the sun was just starting to peek over the horizon, and the first fingers of light were creeping into the dark room. She was too tired to be polite, speak to him, thank him.. there was a slow peace in being just too worn out to do or feel anything.

Outside a bank of high windows to the far wall, there was a scene stained in early morning blue, all ice and snow-laded trees. The furred dark line of evergreens high against the lightening sky. The traces of pink were gathering from the hidden east. The day was dawning. The family was coming. The consequences were swinging into place, like a million disapproving white eyes. Soon it would all be there. And inescapable..

But today, here, in these few hours, they had one another. They had this time. He would stay. He would go, taken into the dark hands of the ANBU. She would go, taken in hand by her family and the council's clutching hands would close in over her head. Like dark waters, the deep mystical danger of the pearl diver's ocean. Power would pass into her hands. And they would be together, again. Again, when the ANBU gave him up, when her family opened their gates. She would take him into her family. Into her open arms, maybe into her sealed heart. Maybe this could happen, because there was a chance of a future, as he stayed... Maybe. And they had this one moment in time, they could be together.

Sasuke knelt over her, silently attending to her, tucking her hair carefully over the pillow so it wouldn't be pinned under her shoulder. She could only grasp his wrist, now, since they had both numbly undressed down to their underwear. She felt him lie down beside her on the futon, pull the comforter over them.. and then there was just the warmth and covers, the silence settling over the hidden cottage, the sparkle of fresh sun on clean ice outside sending faint dancing rays of light into the room. Sasuke had his warm arm around her, she felt his bare skin against hers, and the warm protective shadow of his body. His chakra danced too, in tiny flashes of flame, and she felt her own flowing to his, their energies buffering one another, falling into synchrony.. or maybe she was already dreaming. There was no firm margin between dreams and waking life, now, in that moment. She wondered, maybe already dreaming, about her father looking down from the Hyuga constellation in the lightening morning sky, his diamond facets of chakra. Like that morning in her classroom, when she looked up. She couldn't see his face, but maybe.. maybe he didn't disapprove.

She had spent her entire life believing that, that maybe he did feel some affection for her, and it was just hidden from plain sight. If she looked carefully, and she believed...

All of that was over now. Her father's face, his heart.. all of it was frozen in time. And she was drawn forward. Another day was dawning. She was moving now, moving away from him. She was looking back, and her father was fading.. slowly. Fading into darkness, with the final end of the long night.

-----

The seal was gone, but Sasuke's arm ached and buzzed with angry swollen chakra. It would have to be fixed. The ANBU would have to patch him back together, and that was fine. Sasuke would be delighted to be _their _problem. He could survive until then.

But his arm still hurt from shoulder blade to fingertips, and annoyed him with the pain. Getting it up and over his head hurt like a bastard. Poking at the wound made him shake, it hurt so much. He poked it a few more times, for good measure. Harder. _Harder. _He meant it. He wasn't going back.

He was going to stay. As if this were even a difficult decision.. how hard was the choice? Hinata's warm house versus Orochimaru's repulsive hovel-lairs? Hinata's understanding and affection versus Kabuto's smirk, and Orochimaru's endless games? He was just being foolish, worrying about this. He was going to stay.

He had to. Even if he lost his nerve, even if Orochimaru turned the screws in his head and pulled more post-hypnotic _shit _on him. Even if the Hokage really did stick him in prison and leave him there. He couldn't go back. The seal was gone.

He poked one extremely painful, swollen part in particular, the chakra shadow of one of the tomoe, maybe. Tears sprang to his eyes. It felt really fucking _real _now, unbreakable. Contracts seared into his flesh. Orochimaru's name was off him, once and for all.

There was that ill-advised summoning business with the snakes, too, but _fine. _He'd deal with that. He'd find a Konoha jounin who used snake magic. He'd learn from them. He'd rather deal with the fucking snakes, the _real _snake demons, than Orochimaru any goddamn day of the week, anyway.

He'd nudged Hinata towards bed in his usual way, the way he did things like this when he had to. Too abruptly. He wasn't good with words, with being there for anyone. He was a horrible friend, he knew. He wasn't sure he'd do much better as a lover.

As opposed, that is, to a _fucktoy, _right? Orochimaru's pretty little piece of flesh? Orochimaru's plaything, running away.. but amazingly, he had no energy for rage, either.

Later, for that. Mostly he wanted her to get some proper rest. He intended to take her upstairs to the couch, stoke up the fire again against the creeping drafts of chill from the sealed door. He'd planned to go drag himself away somewhere else, sleep as he did when he was out in the dank Otokagure forests, or too furious with himself to go and sleep in his room, like a normal person.

Like someone, that is, who wasn't _fucking up _everything, and ruining his chances to avenge his family and put things finally back together again. He'd climb into the stone belfries of Orochimaru's warehouse cinderblock village. A village in name only, mostly just a series of dusty unkempt tunnels and raw-masonry hideouts, lairs for poisonous snakes. Wherever he was given to sleep, it always took on the same mixed smell of mildew and slime moulds and illness, the same sick wind of ill fortune that ran through the entire dank place. Full of Orochimaru's sweet-smelling poisons, the same ones that ran slow black fingers through his veins. Otokagure was an utter rathole. No wonder he didn't want to go back, he thought, with a peevish little grimace.

So, he would stay. It wasn't as if he could go back to Orochimaru with his promises broken.

But he wasn't ready to be comfortable, either. He wasn't ready to pretend that he was clean enough, forgiven enough, to touch her. To lie next to her. She decided, she took him with her- it was _her _decision . She invited him and he went with her. He was filthy, he was the same godforsaken runaway that she'd taken in days earlier.. but if she was going to overlook all that, he'd be a damned fool to argue with her.

So he could accept it... her warm arms, her warm bed. He felt as if he could.

And daytime was easier, always. Rage came slower, the demons that drove him faded out in direct sunlight, just a bit.. and he could no longer see their whirling red eyes. He disappeared from them, their hands couldn't find him, they stumbled through darkness bleeding from their old fatal wounds, and now, only Hinata was with him. He was tired... he was losing his ability to be cynical and expect nothing, hate everything.

He asked her how it would be, and she told him. Her family would arrive in the evening. Over the course of the day, maybe, her sister and her cousin would arrive, and the old woman would come to fetch them. Hinata would have to go perform her duties and he would have to either hide away or be hidden by her family.. or simply slip away and go to Naruto and Sakura. But.. until then, they had no need to go anywhere. He had hoped to walk with Hinata in the aftermath of the ice storm, see all the power lines crashed to the ground with her hand warm in his. Maybe there would still be time for that.

Hinata was exhausted. Her voice was a hollowed whisper, and not just from the tears. He noticed that she wasn't even crying anymore, he saw the flat, tired look in her eyes. He told her to rest so that she would have the strength to face her family, and she produced keys to a lower level. An iron skeleton key hidden under a floorboard, then a hidden iron lock in one of the closets off the main hallway. A genjutsu seal that turned on the mechanism of a lock, he'd never seen that before. Her house must be littered with hundreds of little esoteric jutsus like this, little bits of forgotten pasts.

She took him to bed with her...

..down to a hidden third level, sunken entirely in bedrock. They had chiseled out the floor, and it was pleasantly rough under his feet, solid and cool with the certainty of the deep earth. They had set the polished wood boards of the walls against pure, hard rockface. There was a small bathhouse pool down here, cavernous and marbled, a massive reflecting tub set in the stone. Carved _from _it, he sees, glimpses, through the open paper door. There was also a bedroom, a beautiful cedar jewelbox with walls set with enameled screens, the glitter of goldleaf flashing in the first bright light of day, too bright against his tired eyes. The futon itself looked freshly tended. The sheets and pillows smelled of fresh laundry detergent. Hinata retrieved a quilt from the bureau, and if he wasn't so _tired _the fan pattern would have meant more to him... all these echoes of his family, here.. like silent patient ghosts, waiting for him with perfect Zen serenity. Waiting for him to come around, give it up. This last bit of childish rage.

But there was no time for that, or for embarrassment. They undressed, back to back, too tired to peek. He stripped down to his boxers, she slid under the covers as he politely turned his head to give her some privacy, he saw only the collar of her mesh shirt against her white neck and shoulder, the dark cool spill of her hair on the pillows. Probably just her shirt and underwear. He could imagine her soft curves of white flesh coated in that mesh fabric, cotton panties, but he was too tired, his body couldn't even misbehave and embarrass him over that thought.

She wanted him to stay with her, she pulled on his arm, so he got into bed beside her. There was no time or energy for blushing or silliness over just getting into one another's arms. Settling down. She fell asleep first. He had a moment, one endless long perfect pause of morning stillness... just to be alone, feel her body's warmth, her soft heat. The sweet, gentle sound of her slow breathing. To reflect, just for one moment, on what he has been given... he can't imagine why. He doesn't deserve this. But it's real. She's here. It _is _happening.

And it's comforting.. he feels like he can get away without sulking for a moment. He strokes her shoulders as he lies with her, cuddling her as best he can. He could do this once. There was a time when he wasn't just a raw nerve ending of anger, and he could be close to people. He could close his eyes and remember his mother's arms... that was safer, and easier than trying to deal with Itachi, the memory of all his messed-up feelings for that. His inhibitions were dissolving in the morning sunlight, he wanted to just _hold her, _touch her, stay close to her. The reasons didn't matter. The need to be strong, and invulnerable.. that didn't matter either.

But.. well, he was still himself, wasn't he? Was he any less messed up, any less damaged for this? He still had no clan to his name.. was her family _actually _going to allow this? He could hardly imagine it. Hinata was the clan heir, she would have power, clearly.. she would have some say, but he's still the criminal, the runaway, the missing-nin, Orochimaru's instrument. _That _hasn't changed. He hasn't changed...

And no matter what, no matter what low he had to sink to, no matter what degraded filthy thing he had to do, to _allow to be done to him, _no matter what, he would do it. He would _kill his brother. _He would avenge the clan. That was _who_ _he was. _

And that has not changed. Lying here, Hinata's warm arms around him, Hinata's soft hair feathered over his arm, his shoulder, the safety of Hinata's house and her acceptance and her understanding, the sweetness and warmth of her body... He'll still _get _Itachi. No matter what he had to let go of, no matter how he had to crawl back to his village, his tail between his legs like a whipped dog, no matter what he had to do to be forgiven, to get back on that right track, to get some _real _strength for a change. No matter what, he'd do it.

And maybe.. just maybe Naruto never told the village about.. well, _fuck, _about the Valley, about almost-killing him. About Sasuke taunting him later, that second time. Unsheathing his sword and showing the blade to Naruto, telling Naruto that he'd kill him and do it like it was _nothing _to him. That it meant _nothing, _he felt _nothing, _it was all just a throwaway whim of his... He really had said that. A whim. This was going to be impossible.. repenting for all of this.

And that was stupid anyway.. telling Naruto that. Telling him that it was whimsy.. like he'd ever done _anything _on a whim.. ever. That was so _stupid, _Naruto would have never believed that...

But still, lying here, Hinata asleep in his arms, the sun burning at the edges of the window... Sasuke thought he could feel something changing, maybe. All of these cowardly chickenshit little habits of indifference, of never feeling anything, of not needing anyone, hating everything... all of that would have to change, because none of them would be useful anymore. He would _have _to change.

But at the moment...

He sighed. He was finding it hard to stop thinking about Naruto, thinking about the only fucking friend he _ever _had, really. Thinking about taking that good thing and just _throwing it away. _Spitting in Naruto's face. Over.. and over.. and over again.

He didn't know how he was even going to face Naruto and Sakura again. He'd end up _doing it again, _pushing them away. He wouldn't know how to do anything else. Hinata was an aberration, a one in a million chance.. a person he _didn't have to push away. _Naruto and Sakura... well, he didn't know how to be with people, be close to them. He'd end up shoving them away again. He hadn't changed one little bit.

He finally fell asleep. He didn't dream. A mercy. _Always_ a mercy. Just the snake, earlier. Maybe it was okay... maybe it would be all right.

----

After a long endless night of ice and snow, there came a day full of lazy dreams. Hinata felt she could rest, somewhere, in a place where she didn't have to be awake, and she didn't have to _know. _She forgot. Maybe Sasuke was right and she could never forget, not for a second. But maybe some other part of her carries that truth. She falls into the warm sunshine embrace of memories. A favorite one. Naruto-kun. The training ground. The day of the chuunin exam's final matches.

She spoke, then, in a way she had never dared to before. He glanced at her, his bright blue eyes flashing pure and beautiful in the clear sunlight. His blond hair burned dark and molten gold. He was so warm, and so full of energy.. she hid behind the log dummies because she almost couldn't bear to look right at him, he was so hot to the touch. She was too young to fantasize..

..even when she was older, she couldn't. She'd burn her fingertips, thinking about him. He was too much, too fast, too bright. He touched her with his words, his happy, enthusiastic split-second glance, and her entire world was lit up with temple fires. The sacred wells of Hyuga strength, burning in her imagination, the vestal cauldrons they'd light over her father's body, the flames leaping high and dark against the bright sky. High noon. Fire burning against fire. She remembered Naruto, and somewhere deep in the fabric of the dream, she wondered how this would change things.

She hid behind him, and she hid from him. The were chances, and she didn't take them.

But in the dream, she didn't have to acknowledge fear, or what she had done. She could just see, and feel. She had wanted him so badly, once. But it was something she couldn't even acknowledge to herself. She couldn't even imagine it, the two of them together. She could only be near him. Hope that something would work out.

And now, she woke up to Sasuke, sleeping beside her, heavy and warm. She saw the tense knots in his brow, around the edges of his eyes, even in sleep. He looked exhausted, tired, sad, just worn down to the bone.. even as he slept.

He was so different than Naruto, in almost every way.

All of them were, their team. They were strange, exotic.. so _different, _bright and intense in some way that her team just wasn't. She couldn't be part of that, Team Seven, the secret world between them. The hidden, silent unspoken things that flashed between Naruto and Sakura, in their bright eyes. In their silence. It stood out, that silence. It was uncharacteristic of them. They were charismatic, flashy people. They commanded attention, with their clear voices, their determination, burning hot and fast, or slow and steady. She was nothing.. _nothing.. _like them.

But Sasuke fit with them. She could see it now. Darkness to their light. Maybe he was what they needed to struggle against, but... She was an imperfect fit. She was a friend to Naruto and Sakura, turning aside their offers of more with a slow hand. Uncertain, but _knowing _that something just wouldn't fit underneath it all. She didn't know how she would come to fit in with Sasuke. He would stay.. she believed that. But what would happen.. _whatever _would happen, it would be her responsibility. This choice was hers.

But the warm touch of the sun lulled her back to sleep. She dreamed of confused, happy tangles of training with her team. She dreamed of Kurenai-sensei's quiet eyes and the hard gleam of knowing in them. She didn't dream of her family or her house or the trouble coming, marking it with silence. It was very Hyuga of her, classically Hyuga, to simply fall silent and leave it unsaid. It was strange, the way her father had to die to make her feel like a Hyuga at all.

As if his spirit haunted her... Or became her, mingled into her blood.

But that was not Hyuga at all, the old country's wispy mythologies and beliefs. There were no ghosts in the hard Buddhist reckoning of her family's eternal eye.

Her father would not approve.

His ghost couldn't be near her. Only Sasuke, was.. but...

She dreamt and forgot. She was sure she felt her father's hands on her shoulder, channeled somehow in the warmth and closeness of Sasuke's sleeping body, his still, slow breathing. Things that just couldn't be real coming back.. coming to her.. deep in the underweave of her dreams.

----

Sasuke was fairly certain his parents would not approve of this, sleeping with a girl he barely knows. Even if it is platonic.

Hinata woke first, which didn't please him. He found her staring into the morning brightness, the sky on fire with cold sunlight over the shaggy evergreens outside the window. The snow was brilliantly white under the direct light, he had to shield his eyes. He got up to pull the paper doors closed, shading the bed from the piercing light. She said nothing, for a moment, when he got back into bed with her, nudged her and told her that she should sleep.

"I don't think they will take you to prison." she said, drowsily. Like a little kitten, her eyes weren't even open yet. He brushed his fingertips over her eyelids as lightly as he could.

"Don't worry about that." he told her.

"My family won't let them take you.. even if they want to.."

He really had no idea. It would be up to the Hokage, the Fifth... and he remembers that she was a strange woman, to say the least.

But Hinata wouldn't sleep, she woke up further and tried to argue in his favor. He let her, because it was so strange to him, he couldn't get worked up about it, and he couldn't feel like he had to push her away.

"But.. all you've done is run away." she said, as she closed her eyes. Her voice was heavy with concern, drawing him down towards her. It was amazing that he could actually like anyone this much, that anyone could make him feel this immediately, sharp need to comfort, protect. It really was crazy, all of it.

"You haven't killed.. you didn't break that many rules, and you didn't harm the village..." Hinata murmured. And the recriminations crumbled, made him think that maybe it was a betrayal in name only, maybe in the eyes of the law he was just a pawn in someone else's criminal record.But a betrayal in his heart, because he did mean to leave. He gave up that sacred trust of loyalty. And that was everything.. that was what his father and mother taught him to hold to, and he let go...

Hinata finally fell silent, obeyed, settled down in his arms and went back to sleep. He slept again, too. He was far more tired than he could guess. The seal played with him in his dreams. And in those dreams, he was leaking blood and chakra, spilling it through his hands like seawater, an ocean of it lapping in waves at his ankles. He walked over shifting sands, but the ocean didn't pull him down, or push him out. Nothing was going to force his hand. It was frightening most of all, somehow, to think that he really, _really _was in charge. This was his decision.

But it's rationalization, he knows, even as Hinata says it. He appreciates her compassion, but he knows better.

The fact is, when Naruto faced him, and told him that so many others had risked their lives for him? The genin that must have come with him, maybe some of them were dead, their lives lost just so Naruto could pursue him to the Valley. What had he said? Something arrogant, _stupid, _he was full of the heady, dizzy high of Orochimaru's energy. Naruto named them, didn't he? All the genin that had come? What had Sasuke said? _Good for them. _He spat in Naruto's face. He couldn't have cared less.

They were Konoha ninja, they were taught from the moment they became genin at all that they must fight to protect eachother. They must stick together. That sacred trust, the backbone of the village itself, and Naruto's team of genin had reached out their hands, reached after him. Maybe some of them had died that day, but they'd come. For him. They would not let him go.

He looked into Naruto's blue eyes and heard that. Understood it, but...

Did he care?

No. Not at all. He didn't care if Naruto's entire mission team had died, at that moment. If his entire Academy class was lying scattered in bloody pieces, on the long road he'd cut across the land to Orochimaru's side. If his own team, for that matter...

So. He did deserve to go to prison. For the rest of his life. And they should throw away the key.

If Hinata knew... If she _really _knew..

She'd still do this. She was too kind. It made him sick, to think that no matter _what _he did, she'd put up with it. She'd try to save him. He could shake her from sleep right now, brutalize her any way he wanted. He could do everything short of killing her and she'd still speak on his behalf to her family, wouldn't she...?

Like Sakura, who begged him to stay, promising him everything she _had, _it had made him feel like the lowest of the low, listening to her. And he'd had the horrible sense that she really would do anything for him. Worse, that she'd _take _anything he did to her, she'd put up with any amount of abuse. Sickening. He _would _hurt her, he had hurt her before, with some clumsy word or another. And maybe, with Orochimaru's blood pulsing through his veins, he'd hurt her far worse that that, as much as he could, just _because _he could. It turned his stomach.

And worse, it cut him to the quick of that old self, the part of him that was a vengeful black-eyed ghost. The part that would have taken anything- _anything- _Itachi did, and still loved him. The part of him that still took it. Anything and everything. He couldn't _stand _it.

But.. no. Hinata was not this way.

No... there was a hard set to the softness in her face. Her eyes had hidden diamond veins of hardness. She did what was necessary. She would turn him out of this house if she had to, if he raised his hand to her, or to her family. If she knew he'd threatened the village...

And it wasn't as if he didn't feel Orochimaru's intoxicating power and _want _it. Desire did him in, in the end. He followed gladly, he ran into Orochimaru's arms. And if Hinata knew that, knew that only his tactics have changed...

But he lets her sleep. It's done and he can't ever- _ever _go back. There is nowhere else to go. He's locked himself in, now. Orochimaru lies in the past.. and he has to go forward.

He lies awake for what seems like a long time, watching the sun rise up in the sky. The paper door glows with it's light, Hinata murmurs in her sleep, and shifts against him slightly. He could close his eyes, feel her heartbeat, just feel good for a change.

But to go forward... he had to turn back the pages. Back to the beginning. Back to being small and lesser. Back to working hard and seeing that his father never really turned around and noticed. Seeing that Itachi did, but Itachi was just a lie, a fake act to cover his plans. And Itachi soon torn the whole world down. Back to that howling void of nothingness that followed it, knowing that the only thing that could possibly be done was to kill Itachi. Holding that ambition tightly, stitching his heart back up around it. Like a second heartbeat, like a father's love, it sustained him. Hatred, just as Itachi had said. So Sasuke hated, and he trained and worked. He never faltered from the high watermark of achievement his father demanded. All was well until he met them, his team. Kakashi, Sakura. Naruto.

He sighed, because he didn't want to remember this. He didn't have the energy to even think about them... about the way they started to change him. He got so close to it once. This. Healing. Changing.

But he couldn't handle it. It took him apart, because he was just a dead body stitched up around a searing core of rage and sorrow and that just couldn't add up to a person, or a friend, or a teammate. He wasn't any different now.

Or maybe that wasn't true, maybe that's just what Itachi wanted him to think. Maybe he was just Itachi's pawn from the beginning, just another bit of quivering flesh in Itachi's hands, killed or not killed on a whim. Death for his father and mother and clan. But for him, life and torment. And then, anyway, Orochimaru came. Orochimaru who had Itachi before him, who was interwoven tightly with Itachi, and with Itachi's Akatsuki organization, and all the tedious, self-aggrandizing dark shadows with dark intricate plans of total horseshit therein. Maybe a shinobi shouldn't get impatient with mythologies of darkness and supernatural forces, but really.. it got on his nerves sometimes, all of it. He knew about Akatsuki, only, really, because Orochimaru found it amusing to tell him.

So Orochimaru and Itachi wove their tangled webs of deception, a right and left hand that didn't know what the other was doing. And Sasuke was even more lost and broken than before, caught between them. Not that he was every happy or secure anyway. He felt some beginning of security in Itachi's arms, but that was all just a lie, Itachi's calculated act of brotherly love. Fuck it. Fuck _all _of this. He's going to prison because he _deserves _it and he doesn't know how he'll explain any of this to Hinata. Hinata... who believes better of him. He doesn't know if he wants to shatter her illusions of him, or believe in them, try to become them.

That will accomplish nothing. Telling her that he's worthless and he's never _had _any leg to stand on, not even when his family was alive. Even then.. and he'll stay but it's no solution, he's still himself, he's still the same fucked-up, wretched, dirty, miserable bastard that she hauled in from the snow. He thinks about this and tries to keep the grimace off his face, but fails.

That's when she starts kissing him. Insistently. Right then.

----

Hinata found her father in the crowds of her returning family, in between the loaded piles of baggage, the dignified murmur of voices that filled the front garden, as the servants pulled all the flags down and carried trays of tea for the returning travelers. Hinata flew out of the house on her bare feet, she forgot her sandals. She was full of urgency and she doesn't understand why. She knew that her father will scold her, he would be unhappy with her for some reason, but she rushes to his side.

She found him, he flashed to her byakugan, like a flare against noontime sun. His hair flew out behind him in a long shiny dark plait. his crisp robes moved in the restless breeze. He was so sharp and crisp and real, vivid in her byakugan sights. The storm clouds drifted away, restless winds moved between them. The murmur of the crowd fell away. Hinata slowed to a walk to approach him the way she's meant to. She walked to his side and she stopped, she bowed. Glad to the bottom of her heart, she thinks, just to see him, just be around him. Her father.

She woke up and it took her a minute to remember.

Sasuke was asleep, but she couldn't cry quietly enough. She thought that she hadn't disturbed him, and his arm moved against her. She became aware that he had been lying still, he'd been awake for some time. He didn't seem to mind it when she cried... even though she's so weak, and she can't stop. And this is exactly why her father would have been angry with her, right this minute.

"You shouldn't talk that way." Sasuke said gruffly.

"..if you're angry with me.." she whispered, wiping her eyes.

He sighed crossly. "I'm not angry with you at all, Hinata, I just wish-" He stopped short. He did sound very angry as he said that, but he wasn't looking at her. He'd set his jaw tightly, and she saw the waves of tension locking together in the bone and muscle, stress settling into the deep tissue of his body, seeding illness. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, and said, with some effort it seemed "It's not weakness. So don't feel that it is. And don't blame yourself."

He didn't seem like he had anything left to say after that. So she left him in peace, and simply lay with him in silence. She couldn't decide if she should cling to the traces of the dream, or try to be strong and resolute right now, practice, so she could face her family.

"I should be happy..."

She didn't mean to say that out loud. Silence cast it's own spell. And the silence that fell between them softly nudged her to speak. She felt like he would listen, and he wouldn't be offended. It was different, the confidence he gave her. He made her feel different than Naruto did. "I think.." she whispered. "..I could be happy."

She felt him shift uncomfortably under her head, her hands. "No, you shouldn't be."

"Because of my father."

He didn't answer at all, but his lip twisted, sharply, deep furrows formed in his brow. She looked up at him, the way the clean daylight washed all the color from his pale skin.

"Because of you..." she whispered, closing her eyes.

"You shouldn't be happy."

"I think.. I am, as much as I can be."

"It's too late." he said, tiredly.

She had to pause, drowsy and full of the tangled feelings of the dream as she was. She knew what he was talking about. "For my father," she said. "But it's not too late for you." He didn't seem to like hearing her say that. She could see how difficult this would be, just being with him.

But she was happy. She sat up, braced her arm into the pillows and kissed him, the angry, defiant, surrendered tilt to his head, his sprawled posture on the bed, one arm clutching her, the other loosely tangled in her hair. If either of them moved, it would pull, she'll have to stop him, carefully untangle it.

"I know what I'm doing." she said, closing her eyes, bowing her head. It was a vow. It's the continuation of so many others, taken in the service of that first decision. Some of them taken when she didn't even know she _was _the heir, that her father had passed.

"You don't want it to be too late..." she added, softly. Trying to remind him, touch his hand to those decisions he made, too. He seemed lost in his own dark thoughts, drifting far from his own guiding lights. She found his hand in her hair and gathered her fingers around his. They were all tangled up now, together. They couldn't be undone.

He sighed, and it was almost a contemptuous snort, but she knew who his contempt is for, and he's not looking at her. His eyes were closed, the slight twitch of his eyelids pushing to the right, to memory and the past, to choices made.

"If I start living for you, it will be the first time." he said, very soflty, his lips brushing against hers as he spoke. He had his hand to the back of her head now, gently enough, but holding her steadily in place. She couldn't move away.

"But you are alive." she said. She stroked one finger over the soft hollow of his throat, finding his pulse. And then, as he spoke, the heavy quiver of his vocal cords.

"I don't deserve this, or you. You know that."

"...as the heir of the house of Hyuga," she said, and her father's exact cadence of words come so easily to her, his voice bright and vivid in her head, blending with her own. She was so close to Sasuke that she could feel the shimmer of heat from his skin, her eyelashes had brushed over his cheek as she closed her eyes. "I will be the judge of that."

"Do you feel alive?" he asked. His voice was a bit sharp, a bit abrupt. He was still holding her tightly. She had to stop for a moment. And as she did, she understood what he was asking.

"You mean, while my father was alive." she said. Forced herself to say. She had told Sasuke about her father, about the way her father was. She hadn't meant to say it, it was a tacit secret between her father and herself, almost as if she hadn't spoken it aloud, it wouldn't have been really true. There would have still be hope that it hadn't happened, or that Hinata was exaggerating. Or that her father hadn't really meant it.

Sasuke exhaled gruffly and she saw him turn a bit embarrassed and uncertain, seeing that he'd made her cry. She saw him tell her in a few different indirect ways that he was sorry. He didn't let her go, if anything, he pulled her closer.

"Not then." she whispered against his cheek. Between kisses. "Now, I do. I have my team and my friends." She eased herself down on one elbow, and leaned over, kissing his forehead, each sharp cheekbone, the clean line of his nose bridge, the edge of his jaw, working her way around, slowly, searching by touch, keeping her byakugan locked behind her closed eyes. But she had a subliminal sense of chakra, and she could feel it moving in his skin as she pressed her lips, tracing it's hidden lines.

This is something she would never have had the nerve to do before. And just keep doing it, keep showing simple, clear-headed affection. It felt right. Sasuke didn't stop her. He made one soft noise, a sigh, almost of contentment. He pulled his fingers clear of her hair and placed his hands on her shoulders, his fingers kneading her skin gently through the sheer mesh of her shirt. It was very loosely-woven fabric, and she wore nothing under it. Her chest was sliding against his, there was almost nothing in between his skin and hers. And, as she went on, his hand slipped down her shoulder and stroked the indentation of her spine. It made her shiver, something about the way he touched her. And his hand paused on the hem of her shirt.

This too, would be a memory, an impression in flaming sunlight heat, sun spilling into the room in long bright rectangles from the windows. A corner fell over them. She felt the heat seeping into both of them, she didn't have to use her byakugan. She just felt the gentle pressure of his hand, the way he looked at her, breathing a bit quickly now. It was strange, their training maybe.. they were already breathing in synchrony. She thought that they were already close. On some level, they had already done this, touched.. in mind, if not in body.

When she bent to kiss him again, his hand slid through her hair, up the back of her neck and moved her down to meet his lips, exactly. Precise, direct... he moved under her smoothly, with more assurance than she could ever muster. He turned her onto her back, lying over her, the warmth of his body shielding her from the entire world, all it's frightening possibilities.

She honestly couldn't think of whether it was wrong, whether it was disrespectful to her father. Miya would come, and she didn't sense anyone else's chakra anywhere near. The grounds were still blanketed in silence and snow, the ice was melting slowly under the sun's heat. It was turning towards noon.. and she quivered with quiet delight, it felt good, just being held by him and protected this way. The shivers went right through her, quivering into him where they touched, chakra pooling and forming reactive currents. She had to break the kisses, try to breathe. Sasuke kissed her cheek instead, then lower, down to her neck. His lips whispered over her skin, and she was sliding down against the hot press of his body. She couldn't catch her breath, her heart was pounding too hard, beating it's wings against her ribs. Her seal burned under the curious touch of his fingers. Sasuke paused..

And when he did, she saw the downcast planes of his face, whitened with the cool light of midmorning. Outside the snow glowed effervescent white, and she saw a cloud-white slice of sky over the trees. Sasuke opened his eyes and she saw the hard vivid red of his sharingan. She had never seen it before, it's whirling little dots, it's hard focus. He must have see her shock, or maybe it was just more tight precision, those hard dots locked onto her.

Her fingers slid over his cheek. She felt as if she were held tightly in the sharingan-gaze. She had heard about it. She had never _seen _it, never had it turning slowly two inches above her face, reflected in two hard red mirrors, everything she was... It was silly to gasp the way she did, and she wasn't exactly frightened. She was more taken aback. She really had no right, given how much she'd used her byakugan. She wondered if Sasuke had been shocked this way the first time he'd seen her eyes change. But then.. then he was leaning down, his soft hair was falling over her forehead. He was kissing her gently, reassuring her. He was balancing on his good arm. Behind him, an oilslick rainbow of chakra spilled from the remains of his seal. She avoided touching it, it would have to still be hurting him. There were so many bright paths of chakra moving under his skin, she could touch those instead. He was breathing faster as she did, he could feel it. He was kissing her neck, that dangerous way he had before. The way that had threatened to make everything rush ahead. But this time...

..she just sighed, let herself enjoy it, stretching out under him. She could tell that he was trying very hard to be gentle. And somehow the contrast between his rough callused fingers and the care he took was amazingly exciting. She remembered her uncles telling her about mixed blood and making snide remarks about the Uchiha clan, she _saw _that jagged edge of sharingan-blood in Sasuke, but she found it wildly beautiful. She was touching chakra channels that lead deep into his body now, the root chakra, she was pushing this forward. Soon, very soon. If neither of them stopped this, _right now, _it would happen.

But it did feel good. She could catch her breath. She could try to think... it felt wonderful, but she couldn't smile and show him how much she liked it. None of these impossible feelings could be fixed. She kept slipping. When they had to stop and breathe, she said things to Sasuke that were useless, that didn't help anything. She told him that she needed to stop crying, because crying was not helping her in any way. And he nodded, and frowned just a bit more, and she felt worse for _reminding _him. That slipped out too and he locked his black eyes on her, hard and fast.

"Nonsense." he said. "Don't be ashamed."

"It's not shame." she argued, weakly.

"It's a waste of energy to deny it," he replied, absently now. It seemed to calm him more than her, almost. His hands were very warm, very firm. Very precise. He'd pulled her into that simple embrace, massaging one of her feet now under the covers. To give them both a moment to think, he said. His heartbeat was coming down against her ear.

It did feel good, but she felt _bad _about feeling good. It was shame. She though that she'd try to remember that he had the right answer before she even thought of the question. She said that too, everything slipped out of her.. and he sighed, tilting the hair out of his eyes with a irritable flick of his head. "Experience." he said. He said that the pattern of calluses on her feet was unusual, and it was because of her gentle fist style and the way it forced her to shift her weight to strike the blows properly. He wanted to talk to her about her taijutsu, at some length. He was distracting her. It was working.. but she felt so bad.

"I can't forget." she whispered. "I'd feel disloyal if I forgot." Or felt good at all.

He looked down at her, and the sunlight flashed across the polished wood floor. Hard, bright light made him white, made his hair shimmer slightly with tiny strands of bright blue. It made him almost atavistic, magical, a son of Amaterasu, a lost prince cast down from heaven. She told him that too, all her silly imagination, and he laughed, short and sharp.

"If only. You won't forget, Hinata."

But he half-smiled, too. There was a touch of color to his cheeks, with a sliver of openness, even behind the hard set of his face, the little cast of sadness.. all these normal things, the way he normally was. He was showing her the truth. As difficult as it was...

She _was _going to do this. She was going to take him into her house. Deeper than that, closer.. she was going to show him. She wanted him to feel warm and safe, and wanted. She tried to explain, and well...

But this wasn't the time for talking. And it happened _so _fast, as she turned in his arms and pressed herself against him, kissed him and he kissed her back, his arms slipping around her and tightening. The kisses just got deeper, and it was bottomless, this dark ocean, the warmth between their bodies. She felt him touch the seal on her chest, but hesitate, and she wanted him to touch her. She blushed when she had his hand in hers, when she placed it carefully on her breast. He had been waiting for permission, and there it was. His half-smile was almost soft, gentle. He didn't seem to have to be angry at anyone at this moment. It felt right.. she could do this. His kisses eased her worries away.

At the small of his back, she felt quivers of chakra, spirals of energy running through him, rushing blood gathering. She felt him hard against her, she couldn't help but feel it. They were pressed together. And she was ready too. There was nothing between them but her mesh shirt, his boxers, her panties.

He was surprisingly gentle, in the way he pushed the hem of her shirt up, and his fingertips stroked her bare skin. She had to hold back her own little sounds, she felt that she should be quiet. But her skin prickled with giddy electricity when he touched her. He must have felt the same way, his breath broke rhythm when she rubbed against him. She couldn't get her hand down between them.. and she didn't yet dare to. But she looked up at him, his closed eyes, the half-smile on his face, the lack of tension now, around his jaw and eyes... the shallow quickness of his breathing, and hers. His eyes opened again, dark and bottomless, as sunlight knifed between them, cutting around the edge of the paper screen.

He was waiting for her. This was up to her. There was no one else to do this for her, so just let herself react. She squirmed against him, and said '...please...' nothing more than a whisper.

Something in his eyes deepened, the dark color there unfurling, somehow, into velvety shades of intermediate black, rich and deep, as gentle as his hands. She raised her arms for him, and he lifted the shirt right off her. For a moment there was just heat and sunlight, his hair scattering silken and heavy on her bare skin as he bent and traced one nipple, then the other, slow precise sweeps of his tongue. She gasped, but the air was hushed and close. Sound couldn't travel.

This too, somehow, felt like she was dreaming. It was their mingled heat, the laziness of the late morning sunlight. The shock of him being so _close.. _and of daring to do this. He had his sharingan in place again, he said that he wanted to remember. They were moving together, and the friction alone was almost enough. She thought about touching him more directly, she thought about what he'd feel like in her hands. She had already cried out for him, very softly. It was a struggle to not do so again, he was stroking one nipple between two wet fingers. She shivered under him, looked up at his hot shadow against the midday sun. She could almost imagine touching him and watching his eyes change, pleasure drift across his face. He was watching her so intently, his sharingan locked tight as he touched her, and then gathered her in his arms, crushed her against him. She was already intertwined with him, chakra flowed between them, jumping the wet connection where her lips pressed to his, and she parted them under his insistence, let him in. That first glancing wet contact was electric, the chakra reacted. To her hidden byakugan, they were one chakra tangle. Everything else that separated them, clothes and skin and inhibition, it was just a formality.

And it was unbearable.. these deep hungry kisses, his arms locked around her and her legs locked around his waist. Shamelessly, she thought. There was no reason to be ashamed. Maybe she just wasn't used to this. Or maybe she was afraid. There was no real first time for a kunoichi who broke her own hymen and was taught these tactics before she even knew what to do with them. There was no reason to be afraid, or to hesitate. It _was _shame, but it was the shame of feeling good, of being approved of by someone, of feeling like she was getting away with something. But she wasn't stopping.

There were reasons, the moral argument that it was right to save him, to show him this affection, that they were both adults and this was no one's business but their own. Maybe she was just talking herself out of her own inhibitions... and she was rubbing against him right now, she could feel him, hard and warm through the cotton fabric of his boxers. And herself, wet and anxious, nothing but dampening fabric separating them. His hot breath spilled over her face as he moved over her, and she arched her back, these movements had fallen into rhythm and synchrony, too. As if they were sparring, or their bodies just understood one another perfectly, and were just waiting for their better judgment to catch up.

Still... Someone had to stop this. Someone.. either one of them. Even if they did nothing else, the friction alone would do it.

"If you're sure, Hinata." he said quite seriously, almost sternly, breaking the kisses for just a moment. She opened her eyes and saw him leaning over her, balancing his weight on his uninjured arm, curling the other one harmlessly over her, his fingers gently brushing over her breasts. There was a faint flush to even his pale skin, a deep sparkle to his eyes, cutting through and softening even the hard glare of his sharingan.

"It's your decision." he whispered close to her ear.

And she had decided.

Into her house, into her heart, maybe. Into her body. He needed the comfort of it, and so did she.


	12. Security

So here they were.

And everything was safe right now. Hinata's family wasn't back _just yet. _The world was far away.

But Sasuke was going to have to deal with goddamn _Naruto. _He couldn't push that insistent, loud, irritating thought away. Naruto was as bright and obnoxious as ever, shouting in his memory.. and he already had a headache, just thinking about it. Or maybe that was his late-arriving hangover, but either way, Naruto was a intolerable pain in the ass and Sasuke was going to have to not only talk to him, but listen to him, and _explain _to him...

And maybe, on the other hand, Sasuke could just convince Hinata to call Sakura, convince _Sakura _to not tell Naruto anything, and then just have Sakura come over... But then Sasuke would have to deal with _Sakura._

He was thinking of this while Hinata slept in his arms. He was trying to be annoyed, but it was difficult when she was so close. The room was drenched in sunlight and there were sparrows, tiny little quick-moving balls of fluff, hopping all over the windowsill. Sasuke could hear them raising a high-pitched racket through the glass. He couldn't be angry.

Up until now, since the beginning of time, when Itachi had ripped the entire world apart, Sasuke had depended on anger, let it keep him alive. _Like a second heartbeat. _Rage had plenty of utility in Otokagure, it was a wall of flames Sasuke could hold behind himself and Orochimaru. He could protect some small part of himself that way.

Forever. As long as he stayed angry, and stayed empty.. and just hated Itachi with everything he had, then things would be all right. That is, they wouldn't get any worse. Things were _never _all right, and never _had_ been all right.

Hinata would have stayed asleep, probably, long enough for him to work himself into a good satisfying rage.

But rage was quickly becoming useless here... and he didn't know what he was going to do without pure anger to fix everything for him. Living.. feeling something else.. it meant the possibility of mistakes. It meant he'd have to abandon certainty.

And it was worth it.. _she _was worth it... he could look down and watch her sleep, feel her heavy, warm press against his body. Her chakra halo was as light and sweet as summer rain..

Maudlin, maybe, to think these things, but she reminded him instantly of better things, comforts that he'd forgotten. She was worth it, but it was going to extremely difficult. And there was no way that he'd be able to do it perfectly.

But... Maybe he was just ready. Maybe he'd been ready to leave that path to darkness for some time. Maybe she was just the reason he needed, when any half-reason would have done just fine. Maybe he just wanted an excuse to cut away from Orochimaru. Maybe.

But the future was too complicated to think about anyway, so he just tried to relax.

They had to wait. He couldn't do much of anything other than just stay with her, and wait for the old woman to come and unseal the doors. There was some Hyuga traditional nonsense about locking down the house for a death in the family. They'd even put a seal on Hinata because they were so paranoid. It was all stupid, but.. well. The sun got to him. Hinata's drowsy warmth, her hair slipping through his fingers- that got to him too.

Daylight was always easier.. no memories. No ghosts.

Hinata woke up and turned herself sleepily in her arms. Her cheek was wet with tears under his lips. Maybe it was wrong. But maybe they just couldn't stop themselves. And maybe it was right. Maybe it was right. Nothing had been right for so long, he wouldn't know right if it stared him in the face, now.

He told her to stop him. It was up to her. This was all her choice. That's what he had decided. He could make a case for simply seeing it through, that to do otherwise would be cowardly.

He was still as difficult and wretched as ever. His head was full of worries_.. why couldn't he just relax and enjoy this?_ It was like he just couldn't stand to feel good, to enjoy anything... And that was the wrong attitude. He had to keep his fool mouth _shut, _or he really _was _going to ruin this.

Better to take his own advice. Force his mind into the immediate present. His demanding body, his typically insistent hard-on, Hinata's soft skin pressed to his, her little gasps rippling over him like waves. Making him want to just forget about responsibility, about all that crap- forget it. They could think better of this later.

And she was _so _warm. She had every pressure point in his body wrapped around her little finger. She stopped crying when he kissed her... that was good enough for him. He'd done so much more with a piece of garbage like Orochimaru, letting Orochimaru crawl into his body and mind and slither around in there. He'd rather lie in Hinata's hands for a while. Maybe she could quiet the ugly hissing voice in his head. Maybe this could _actually work, _her family wasn't there to make trouble yet. No one was screaming in their faces yet. He didn't have to deal with Naruto _yet, _he could just lose himself in Hinata. That felt good. He could allow himself to just feel _good _for a change.. it wouldn't be so wrong.

_Maybe it would be right. _So... maybe he would just abdicate responsibility... And they both did, and it made him feel free... weightless, almost. Giddy with the naughty thrill of this. He was in bed, half-naked, with the Hyuga heiress.

In bed- _naked-_ with the heir to the entire dynastic Hyuga clan, the Hyuga clan that was bigger and older and more powerful than his own.

Who would have been angrier- his father or Hinata's? It really would have been a huge inter-clan _mess _if they weren't, currently, both in the headship position for their respective clans.

So. The great noble Uchiha and Hyuga clans of Konoha.. and their future was in the hands of two horny eighteen year olds. Two horny teenagers- busily groping one another with those hands, at that. Pathetic.

But he didn't half-mind.. at this moment.

His father, he thought idly, probably would have been angrier. He could picture his father's face, his father's fury. But yet... it was so far away. It was amazing how easy it was to just relax.. be with her.. once he allowed himself to just stop worrying. As if worrying would change or fix _anything. _As if somehow everything would fall apart if he didn't hate and worry every second of every day.

But nothing was falling apart right now. Everything was safe. Hinata moved against him, in rhythm and measure, to tuneless memories unwinding in his head. She said that if they didn't stop, if he didn't stop her, then it would be too late. He felt that, somehow, the urgency gathering in her movements. And he'd done this a million times before with a million strangers, it seemed. But it wasn't at all like this. This was new. He'd never been with someone like her before.

The Hyuga heiress... everything he'd ever wanted to be, really, as if perfectly made for him.

And Orochimaru went on, sometimes, about how Itachi had been too much, too distant, too cryptic, too uncontrollable. But Sasuke was perfect, as if fitted perfectly to his whip-hand. _You were made just for me, Sasuke-kun. _

Well, he'd rather be made for something, anything, _anyone_ else. _As if he were just waiting for an excuse. _Anything. Anyone. And here was someone who seemed so perfectly fitted to him.

Which was entirely too sentimental. He really should have been annoyed with himself... But he could do that later. For now... he whispered her name into her ear. Just testing how it sounded, when he said it. Hinata. The Hyuga heiress, and the Uchiha survivor.

And there really was something blackly funny about that, two great clans reduced to this. There was something almost intensely arousing about that... her family and his, intertwining. He didn't believe in romantic crap, but he could believe in legacy, and in the normal trustworthy love between committed couples. He could believe in the security of the Hyuga clan. For all it's Byzantine power games, it had endured for more than a thousand years. Something about it, about _this, _just felt _right. _

_Maybe it was right, _like he was just trying to find a way to break down his own walls, any excuse. It felt right.. She matched his movements so perfectly, as if even in this awkward groping, they understood one another. It was a bit like the sixth sense that took over when he was fighting well, when leverage and power and advantage and chakra and everything were going his way. He didn't have to think at all, his higher self just got in the way. His body knew best, he'd trained it to _know. _

And it knew now, too. It knew the way... it didn't matter that he felt strangely inexperienced. It didn't matter that he didn't have any clue how to be a decent lover or boyfriend.. or whatever he'd be to her now. His brittle sense of pride, which was such a goddamn crushing useless _burden _sometimes, that didn't matter, nothing mattered. Nothing. _Give me an excuse. _He was so close to letting go, dizzyingly close to the edge.

Nothing mattered but touching her, trying to show her this feeling through his lips, his fingers. Trying to make her feel safe and wanted. He did want her. He really did like her, more than he would have usually been comfortable admitting. He was dazed, dazzled, by her soft white skin, that deep _heat _he could feel through her thin panties. Cotton, not silk. She was a practical girl. He just _wanted _her all the more for it, she was real and safe in a way that he couldn't get enough of.

He really would have never imagined that he'd be in this situation. He thought most of this was bullshit, 'love at first sight'.. utter crap. And they weren't in love, he knew rationally that they were at most in lust, and in _like. _But he could imagine love coming. It wouldn't be so strange. It would almost seem normal.. natural. Real. Safe. Perfect.

------------------

"Is it strange that I think my father's still alive?" Hinata asked Sasuke, tensely, somewhere in the middle of that long sunny midmorning.

He shifted against her, the sheets rustling slightly. The spiky hair at the base of his neck was tangled in her fingers. They were curled together like that, half-awake. Like the housecats, Hinata thought distantly, when they would curl up together on the wooden floors and sleep in patches of sunlight. Talking felt natural and unhurried this way. There was no pressure in anything. She could just say what she wished. And he would answer, or not. But mostly he did.

"No." he said. He said it wasn't strange at all.

They lay together, warm under two quilts, warm pillows, his arm curled around her, holding her close to him. So close she could feel every move he made. Silence had fallen over the cottage, and there was no one nearby. The ice glittered outside, and somewhere the servants were busy, somewhere her family was crossing borders. But here, it was almost as if they had a small, comfortable universe all to themselves. As if there was just no one else in the world except the two of them..

"I think I do trust you.." she murmured.

He seemed almost embarrassed by that. She felt him tense slightly. She opened one eye, lazy as a cat, and saw a faint dusting of pink on his cheeks. She didn't understand it, he'd been so adored at the academy. Everyone had known his name, and everyone had gasped in awe, when he performed perfectly.. every single time. Hadn't most of the audience at the chunnin exam come specifically to see him fight? But he didn't seem used to being... liked. She asked him, and he said, tightly "It's different."

She didn't really understand that either, and he said, before she could speak: "It's different when it's you, Hinata."

Then he swiftly changed the subject back to her father.

"It never really stops." he said, meaning that none of what she felt now would ever really go away. She'd always have this cold, numb feeling. Even after years.

"It fades." he said, distantly. "Other things get in the way." And he sounded so different when he was relaxed. Almost boyish.

She turned her head up slightly to watch him. She lay on his chest, and he stroked her back, or her hair, idly switching between the two. He was favoring his uninjured arm. She thought that it was silly that she should expect him to sound older.. or, well, the way he did normally. He seemed to fall into a deeper register of his voice, growl and snarl at people. She closed her eyes again. She didn't want to embarrass him by staring that way... and she thought, too, that he must just be very angry. Anger floated around him like tiny plumes of smoke, hidden flames. She sighed. She wished, suddenly, that she could go back to not understanding that, that she didn't have the same dark spot of anger eating at her right now. Smaller, maybe. She'd only lost... well.. both parents. Her mother first, and now her father.

And maybe it was understandable. Who could ever understand how he felt?

But... still. He was the same age as her, once he'd been almost exactly the same, just a child of Konoha. Another young ninja trainee in a academy class. He shouldn't have been that different.

Well.. maybe now she would be darkened and complicated too. She felt a bit like that, as if there was a black tangle of anger set into her now. _Something _was driving her. She couldn't leave any of this alone. She asked Sasuke about ghosts, and about dreaming of her father coming home. She asked him about what to do when those dreams felt so real, and even after you woke up, you still almost believed that the dead would come back. As if her father really were still alive. That still felt like the only reasonable option. It seemed so crazy, her father.. dead? He was only forty-seven! He'd only had one heart attack before, he was in perfect health. He'd had a small heart problem, maybe.. but no, it just... it seemed so wrong for it to be true.

It was so easy, really, she found, to busy herself with those thoughts.

And maybe worst of all, the thought of the relationship that just _wasn't. _About maybe having to finally admit that she'd never really gotten that close to her father. Would that be best? Would that be facing reality? She didn't know.. and she felt it would be cruel, somehow, to ask Sasuke.

So she didn't ask. He picked up her mood, but not the specifics. He told her his own stories, in his very precise, direct way of speaking.. stories that sounded a bit more like situation reports, but something in the inflection of his voice gave them life.

It distracted her, and took her a bit further away from the knot twisting in her stomach. She could imagine the journey he'd made, from the massacre to now. Here. He told her about ghosts. And about dreams... and about nightmares. He seemed relieved that she hadn't had them yet, and maybe she wouldn't. Maybe that wasn't her relationship with the dead. She closed her eyes. Imagined the intricate patterns he idly traced on her back. Sharingan, he said, imitating the way she'd felt for his chakra-channels, transferring it back to her flesh.

It did calm her a bit.

"Relax." he whispered.

But she found herself circling and returning to that point. That single point. Her father, and never really knowing him. Never really.. _really _feeling like she connected with him. Or was with him, at all. And she was crying again...

Sasuke was getting very good at drying her tears. He sighed; and after a moment he said, softly "You wanted recognition from him, and now he's gone and you'll never get it."

Which was exactly it. It still hurt to hear it spoken so directly. She curled herself up tightly against him and pressed her face into the spare, taut skin of his shoulder and collarbone.

She felt him sigh. "Try to relax." he said.

She murmured into his skin. "I'll try..." She felt down for his heart, the steady pulse of blood and chakra. He dragged his hand up the curve of her back, and it made her catch her breath, the way he touched her, the way he ran his hand down her shoulder and forearm, and then gently twined his fingers between hers. "I can't relax when you do that.." she whispered, breathless now.

"Either way." he said, a hint of a smile in his voice.

The sunlight shifted.. and she watched the clouds drift in a sunny blue sky. Her limbs felt lazy and heavy with the sun's heat. There was just no barrier between them, now. Nothing at all. Everything had melted away, even her own shyness. "I trust you." she whispered, again.

She could ask him a number of things, now that talking was easier. She could ask about Team 7. It was something she wondered about, and had for some time.

She was friends with Naruto and Sakura. They were good friends to her. And there was a yawning, bleeding hole right in the middle of both of them. It was something, maybe, that made her have to keep her distance just a bit. She knew it wasn't her business... and she worried that she could do no good, she certainly couldn't fix this for them. It would be wrong to interfere... she wasn't sure, but it didn't seem right to risk it.

Sasuke had been here, now, back home for more than a few days. He had made his decision to stay many hours ago. He had not asked after, or wanted to know anything about Naruto and Sakura. Not once. He said they would come to pay their respects to Hinata, and he would go with them then. She heard no affection in his voice when he said that. Just anger.. and why should he be angry with them...?

Well, she didn't understand. And it really was not her business. She had her own team, and Shino would tell her that it was best to not get involved. Kiba would use slightly rougher language, but he would say the same.

And maybe she would have to answer all these uncomfortable questions herself. Sasuke could read her straight through, he picked up on her changed mood immediately.. and she had to make up a silly excuse. She just told him she was sad about her father. And maybe she was. Maybe she was just expanding that circle of sadness, letting it seek out and touch every other problem she could think of. She said, because she felt close enough to him to do so:

"I don't feel right. I'm not acting right.. this isn't how I should feel."

And hid her face in the covers and the crook of his neck she said it. She whispered the words against his warm flesh. She really wasn't being the way she should be. She should be more stricken by grief, paralyzed with it. Or she should not, _absolutely not- _feel anger. Because her father was gone and he'd never really let her know him. He'd never been in her reach. And that was a hard red lump of anger deep inside her. It wasn't going anywhere. It felt like it could stay and endure for years, if it had to. Maybe it already had.

And, of course, she was wrong because she was not being a proper Hyuga stoic. Somehow the grief was wrong. _She _was wrong. But she had always been wrong in the eyes of her family. She'd told Sasuke some of that old, difficult story. She found herself telling him more, and starting to shake in his arms. Maybe it was the anger, she couldn't tell...

But he wouldn't have it.

He wrapped her up tightly in his arms and asked her a series of complicated questions about why she was not a jounin when he thought she was skilled enough to be considered for promotion. And he was so insistent that she had to devote all her attention to thinking over his questions and answering them properly. It was a whole other world that he was asking about, the world outside her family's house. A place where no one knew that she was wrong and weak and just not right. No one knew. No one noticed.

She still found her thoughts circling back. Ghosts. The dead... and what she was meant to do. What would be properly Hyuga? No emotion shown outside the house, certainly. If her father was here, he would frown upon all this crying. He would ask her how this would honor her dead family member, if she was upholding the strength of the house... all these leading questions. That was his way, sometimes, when he was exasperated with her. When he bothered to speak to her at all. To think that he had chosen her after all, it still seemed too unreal. It just didn't have the ring of authenticity.

So in the midst of telling Sasuke about being called up for special-jounin status last year, and opting out, staying with her students, she thought back. She thought into her family's history of death. The way it was meant to be...

And her family was not Shinto Buddhist precisely, but the old country's religion remained in traces. It was the stories of transformation that stayed with her. A fisherman's wife became an octopus. The Hyuga clan leaders before her, her grandmother and her father- they became stars. They were not dead so much as transformed, present and visible, part of her world, but now somehow permanently out of her reach. A feudal lord's daughter was killed by a hunter and became a pond lotus that floated in her father's garden. Hinata's father has gone to the sky. He would always be there, like the lord's flower, but Hinata would never speak to him again, not in this world. The veil between the worlds had shifted. He was changed, forever. She would spend the rest of her life looking up, looking after him. And he would never look back, never again.

She couldn't sort her feelings out at all. The day had been an emotional tangle. She leaned into Sasuke's arms, and kissed the silvery little puckers of scar tissue that dotted his skin. She told him the story about the Hyuga stars, and the transformation. He looked down, and she looked up, and for a moment he held her gaze with quiet consternation, an in-between sort of look. As if he wasn't sure if he liked the idea or not. Part of his eyes said _nonsense, _but the other part said something else, a whisper of something. He might have been freer once. He might have been less given over to total certainty. She wondered, and settled her fingertips in his hair, watching him back. She wondered if he really had time for any of her flights of fancy.

"It was different for us." he said distantly. "We didn't have any legends like that."

Eventually he broke the eye contact, naturally. He sighed and closed his eyes, settling back against the pillows. He told her about the dead Uchiha. He spoke and she could hear him avoiding some bloody, ugly patch of the truth. But she didn't prod him. She just rested her ear on his chest and listened.

And the afternoon unwound that way, and she found herself deeper in his arms, kissing him and not wanting to stop. Somehow it became almost right, almost _right _in so many ways that went beyond simple morality. Or what her father would want her to do.

She needed to let go of her father to do this. She needed to just turn her thoughts for a moment. There would be time, anyway, to mourn the dead properly. There would be days of family ritual, as soon as the council returned and reassembled. So she could let go... she could. And she did.

To just focus on her body, on physical reality.. or maybe on his body, on his presence, right beside her... He had beautiful eyes. She wasn't sure if that was something a boy would want to hear, whether he would consider it a compliment or not.. but she preferred them when they were dark. The sharingan was definitely a bit scary-looking at the best of times. She could feel his intentions, that was basic Hyuga byakugan jutsu. But those slow-turning red wheel-eyes...

She tried to tell him that she wasn't frightened, when he saw clearly that she was. Talking wasn't as hard as it once had been, but it was still awkward. She hurried to get back to what felt better, just kissing him. She knew that they could talk later. For now...

Now. She whispered, and she wasn't sure if she could just take these remaining scraps of clothing off. She already was flushed and full of naughty indecent thoughts. There was something forbidden and sweet about thinking things, imagining the parts of a man's body that just weren't meant for polite conversation. She was a child in the eyes of her family, once who was not taught their ways and rules of procreation. Not just yet. They would tell her what they wanted when it was time. Or else she was a tool, and this was a strategy, a way to distract her target so she could cut his throat.

She was flushed pink, as if lightly bruised from all these hard little kisses. Sasuke was bending over her breasts, and her nipples tingled, all wet and suddenly chilled in the cold air, as he pulled away from one to lean down to the other. She felt him exploring her, tasting her.. and she was sighing now, those sighs were turning to little whimpers. She wanted to take those cotton boxers right off him, she could feel him right through them. She wanted to touch the flushed sensitive parts of his body, and it was acting, not thinking, that got it done. "Now.." she whispered. And instead he reached down between them, and stripped her soaked panties from her.

She opened her eyes in time to see him leaning down into the covers to untangle them from her ankles, then he smiled at her, with a strange mix of almost-amusement and simple relaxed happiness, fleeting as it was, the same cast of sadness faded out like his sharingan, just to a chakra shadow. Still there, but hidden. He pulled her rolled up panties out from under them, and summarily tossed them over his shoulder.

"All right." he said. And it was both acknowledgment and permission. Hinata watched him, the faint flush that was on him now, on his pale thin cheeks, the hard facets of muscle in his arms and across his chest, his white skin turning almost pink in places, as she watched him breathing hard. He took her hand in his, guiding her.. and there was just nothing more to say.

She felt her way down his body. His skin was stretched just a bit more tautly than her own, across bone and muscle... the strange mixture of pointed hardness and soft skin as her hand found one nipple, and she saw him struggle briefly to catch his breath. He blinked, and the sharingan was back, slowly turning, as she traced around the little hard point with her finger.

As he held very still, just the distant hammer of his heartbeat that she could feel through his chest, then down the tight cords of his stomach, where he quivered ever so slightly as she felt lower, and lower, and found the waistband of his boxers, damp with their mingled sweat.

He needed to get up off her slightly to allow her to do this, and he did without being asked, instantly. He shook the covers off his shoulders and climbed to his feet, and she moved with him to her knees, and pulled his boxers down. Her hands were busy with the fabric, it was only her lips that were free. He was hard, she had felt that. But it was another thing to _see. _It was probably improper of her. But she was curious. She wanted to know what he felt like, tasted like. He was so hardened, just in his manner, his way of speaking, the person he was. She saw glints of softer things beneath that, but she wanted to see more. She wanted to feel him shake under her the way she'd quivered under him. He was standing and she couldn't wait. She just took him in hand, let his boxers fall to his ankles and felt him along his full length, felt him react- instantly. She closed her eyes and found his swollen tip with her lips, by heat behind her eyelids, the flicker of her byakugan painting him in hot oranges and swirling pinks. She heard him gasp as she rubbed her lips all over him, working up her courage.

Justifying this to herself...

_It's wrong, _she thought, but some part of her wanted to be wrong in exactly the way she wanted. If she was already wrong, she didn't have to wait and she didn't have to be polite, and she didn't have to come up with a justification for just being so curious, and wanting him so much. .

"Hinata." he seemed to mean that to be stern, but he couldn't manage it. His voice caught in his throat. His hands settled on her shoulders, stroking her, she could feel him just touching her the way she was touching him, exploring, feeling for feeling's sake. One of his hands lightly stroked her hair, she could feel that he was being so careful, trying so hard not to grasp her tightly and hurt her.

But he said again "Hinata.." Like he had to make his own justifications to himself. She wanted to take him away from that outer world where they had responsibilities and their pride and her own sense of decency, whatever he'd been taught in his clan about what high-born Uchiha did and did not do. What was allowed... she wanted to shut that out, the way it was suddenly so far away for her. "Hinata." he whispered, and his swollen flesh was taut, but silken here, almost delicate. She grazed it with her tongue. He stopped arguing instantly.

-------------------------------------

Orochimaru's spinning gold hypnotist's disc.

What a _stupid _affectation that was. Sasuke sneered at him. Orochimaru just smiled, displaying second and third rows of elegant fangs, and told him to watch carefully. Sasuke had assumed that there would be a finality to Orochimaru's use of his body. That is, it would be clear when Orochimaru took him. He would be killed, Orochimaru would wear his body like an expensive tailored flesh suit.

But it wasn't like that. Orochimaru slipped in and out of him, nothing final or simple about it. There was no firm line on where Orochimaru's influence ended and his control began. Just because you saw him walking around in another body did not mean that he wasn't already in yours.

So Sasuke tested himself- his motives, his clumsy little feelings- for Orochimaru's shadow. There were probably many reasons why he should not have chanced lying down with Hinata.. but maybe... He sensed that maybe Hinata wouldn't be very interesting to Orochimaru. He suspected that it was the cursed blood that drew the filthy old snake, the byakugan was too clean. The Hyuga were too much in the light. Orochimaru wanted other despicable creatures that scuttled around in the darkness. Maybe Orochimaru would be interested in tearing Hinata's pretty head off her shoulders just to annoy Sasuke,..

_Annoy. _Orochimaru _would _think of it that way. _Ah, I've killed her, Sasuke-kun. I know it's annoying, but... _

He held his temper in check. That _fucking snake. _But it wasn't as if he was in _any _way surprised by the sheer depth of depravity Orochimaru could sink to. So. Yes, Orochimaru might find it amusing to kill her. As a joke, maybe. That would be very like him.

But beyond that... Sasuke couldn't imagine Orochimaru working up much enthusiasm. The Hyuga would just be so _boring, _wouldn't they? And besides, killing everyone Sasuke had ever looked at twice was so _passé, _wasn't it? It had been done. Orochimaru loved novelty above all. Sasuke figured Hinata would not be in direct danger, the Four would come for him and not bother with anyone else. As they had before.

Meanwhile, Hinata was looking for reasons to not be sad about her father. That is, to compartmentalize the grief. He understood that. They only had this time. Her family would return...

And while he was still the same wretched missing-nin, still sore and still as pissed-off with the same rivers of anger running through him...

...it wasn't nothing, to be here. He was alone in privacy and comfort with a girl who he could imagine- quite clearly- falling in love with.

Though, he didn't feel that he 'fell' in love with anyone. He simple came to the state of loving them. He didn't see anything particularly magical about that, it was just a fact of life. Love was natural and normal. He wasn't in the mood to waste time pulling that nonsense about it not existing, or somehow deciding that he was exempt from it. He'd had ten years of bitterness to really enjoy the masochistic thrill of that. But he was sick of it now. It was empty. He just _didn't feel like ruining this. _Whether through a thoughtless word to her, or through his own bad attitude. It wouldn't take much angry sullenness from him to do it. And it would be pointless- so that was that.

He could only go through the motions of thought so many times. He was a traitor, he was a _disappointment, _he was lesser and smaller and forever-weaker than Itachi. He was dirty now, from Orochimaru's hands and his own twisted-up thoughts. He was soiled right through with anger. And...?

Maybe what he had to do was accept this and choose to live on anyway. Maybe _that _would be growing the hell up.

He already knew that he had to take responsibility...

...and he would. He'd go and take whatever punishment they'd hand out.

But he didn't have to let that ruin this either. Nothing he did or said here would change that. If he let himself enjoy this.. or if he insisted on sulking and working himself into a rage? It would change nothing either way, he wouldn't become somehow less guilty if he denied himself this.

But...

_All you'll ever want is me._

Orochimaru seduced with sweetness, and with whatever you desired. The irony was that it felt like freedom. It felt like you were finally getting where you wanted to go, everything was just starting to go your way; and that's exactly how this was, too. Orochimaru's hands were, after all, tended and manicured and kept silky-soft. Like a princesses, even a kunoichi's hands were still pockmarked and callused. There just wasn't any time for useless beauty in any ninja's life. Maybe in passing. Orochimaru seemed to want to turn himself into a kabuki mask, a doll, a painted marionette, dancing far beyond. Flaunting immortality.. like he was just so above it all.

So. Sasuke didn't resist him. No more than usual, just token resistance. A glare, snarls. Just enough to let Orochimaru know that Sasuke didn't like him- and Sasuke thought all of this was absolute bullshit. But that done, he would just collapse back into Orochimaru's arms. And Orochimaru would have his way. Always... and it would be good, better than anything he could do with his own hands. He didn't want to allow himself much pleasure, ever, anyway. He mistrusted it. But Orochimaru bathed in pleasure and frolicked in pleasure for his own sake. So what he did was always, _always _overwhelming and would sate deep hidden desires and hungers Sasuke didn't even know he had. Or maybe Orochimaru had created them for the occasion. Nothing would ever feel like what Orochimaru did.

Surely not Hinata's hands. Soft, and small. Warmer, and they were alive, Orochimaru felt half-dead, half-reptile. But Hinata was whole and reassuringly normal. So he wasn't complaining... He would never have to think that maybe her tongue would start coiling around his erection and squeezing him half to death. She wouldn't prick him with senbon at key moments of ecstasy. She wouldn't do that thing with the pressure points, holding down the root chakra's stop button at _the exact wrong moment. _Which was something Orochimaru, not surprisingly, delighted in.

But. _He could ruin this or he could enjoy it. _And he was tired, bone-tired of _pain _and hate and feeling horrible for it's own sake.

And...

He'd spent a lot of time dreaming about her. Wondering.

Maybe 'dreaming' wasn't the right word. Lusting after her, to be exact. But it wasn't wasted time, he certainly had nothing better to do, not while he couldn't train without wrenching his stitches open again. And he was tiring of rage, tiring of replaying the same old sharingan-memories, all of Orochimaru's various annoyances and games. Better to think of something enjoyable for a change. Like a shy and beautiful girl who seemed to like him back...

He really hadn't thought he'd get anywhere. He wasn't going to talk to her, he was hopeless with people. He could have done just about anything through violence. but he didn't have a clue how to act with girls.. or with anyone he didn't want to kill, defeat or learn from.

He thought those overly-friendly girls from the academy, the ones who watched him all the time and made him suspicious, would probably have nothing to do with him now. He was a missing-nin. The heir of the house of Hyuga would either know better, or her family would put a stop to it very quickly...

But he could dream all he liked. The medicines and teas the old woman pushed on him made him drowsy, and for a while he imagined turning her over gently on the sheets of her bed beside him. He'd kiss her, and she'd move against him. Her hot little fingers would press against the small of his back, her arms would curl around him. She'd be warm inside, wet and silken... She'd be overwhelming in her delicate prettiness, the hard contrast of her white skin against his.. and the rest of the fantasy would unwind, he'd have to clean up after, and then he'd put himself back to bed and feel vaguely guilty about it.

But now that it was actually happening...

She surprised him. He wasn't sure what she'd be like.. would she be too shy to do anything? Would she be frightened? He didn't think so, he saw hard lines of maturity in her. She was innocent maybe, but she was not a child, maybe she'd become more of an adult than he had. Maybe she'd had no choice but to do so.

Still.. she seemed shy. Would she be demure.. would she blush and want him to lead the way? Would she want to be persuaded.. seduced...? Would she be completely inexperienced and uncertain? He hadn't quite expected her to just _grab _him, but well...

He had to find something to hold onto, otherwise he was going to fall off his feet.

But there wasn't anything he could grab, the futon shifted under his feet and he wanted to relax, to just concentrate on.. on.. well, the fact that she was touching him. And he didn't want to have to constantly readjust his balance. And he was cold, the heat wasn't on. He shivered- hard- and that got her attention. He grabbed her- clumsy with haste, his hands were sweaty suddenly- and got them both back under the covers. He hoped she would just _keep doing that, _please _keep doing that. _Asking her to keep going would require _thinking. _He got about as far as gasping her name, crushing her into his arms. Her cheek brushed against his chest, and her hair fell over his skin- silken. Cold and silky, exactly as he'd imagined. The soft skin of her cheek was chilled, but her lips were soft and warm and she was _wrapping her tongue around him- _he couldn't think.

Thinking was overrated anyway, he thought, inhaling hard, quick breaths of cold air.

It meant something, somehow, to have this done by someone he actually liked, for a change.

He had to remember not to touch her head, pull her hair, push her to take him in.. _ah, _she was just licking him, and then shallowly sucking on him at the very tip... it took so much self control. Until he realized that she'd pinned his legs under her arms and he had no leverage. None. If he tried to do anything, she could break his hold.. and he was in a way, completely helpless. How many blood vessels swollen heavy right now, between her lips? That would be one way for a kunoichi to off their target. _Ah, _it was fucked-up, thinking about her _killing, _her killing him with soft hands, her silky little tongue. Just stopping his heart. He wasn't thinking. He couldn't think. He could just feel and fantasize and make it feel so much better, thinking about her. Iron fists and satin gloves.

Actually, this was probably a bad idea. And it hadn't been _his _idea, he'd just been trying to get his damned clothes off. He'd missed that hint of nerve in her soft eyes, maybe. He'd sensed that she might have a dark current of desire or two. She'd clung to him and shivered in his arms and moaned softly as he teased her little nipples to stiff points... they weren't pink as he'd imagined, more a sort of lavender. But otherwise, he'd imagined correctly. And Orochimaru and all that, it was just words now. It was far away, because he couldn't think and all there was to focus on was her hands- doing something to the base of his penis now- he couldn't _breathe._ She had vanished under the covers, and he was having a hard time connecting the soft warm lips gently teasing him, the iron hands holding him steady, all of it... with the soft-spoken demure girl he'd laid down with.

He had to tear the covers back, pull her up to him, get her under him- _now. _

He did before he could think better of it. Fine, he _wasn't thinking._

They'd been under the covers the entire time.. he'd felt every part of her... well, almost every part. He hadn't actually _seen _her.. but he felt her graceful limbs, strong with sleek muscle. She was still soft, though.. he couldn't get enough of that. Softness.. heavy-breasted...and he was interested in particular in this other part, a bit lower, just beneath the slight softness of her stomach, the inviting softness of her thighs. He'd fantasized about getting his hand down between them at some length... sweating just a bit harder now, thinking about it.

She whimpered- literally whimpered- his name, and he wasn't thinking at all anymore.

He was buried in her flesh, her soft breasts pressed to his cheek, his hands slowly slipping between her legs. He listened to her breathe, and start to come close to little moans. When his fingers finally found wetness, and heat, and incredible softness, softer still than the rest of her flesh, she was crying out fully. He hadn't even begun, he'd barely touched her. Maybe he wasn't messing this up after all... but he couldn't see anything. He _wanted _to see.

So he pulled the covers back, parted her legs so he could see what he was doing. She was more a pale lavender here, too.. glittering wetly and spread open like the petals of a flower for him. She arched her back and gasped as he pressed the flat of his thumb to the little nub of flesh, pinkish here, a swollen pink. Her heart was racing so fast, he could feel her pulse through the underside of her thigh, where his fingers sank just a bit into her flesh. He was trying to hold her still, reassure her, make her feel protected. But he needed both hands. And as she whimpered and gasped and quivered under his fingers, he touched the outer folds first, the ones that were like the rest of her outer flesh. Then the inner ones, which had a strange, enticing difference in texture, like very expensive fine silk. Slowly. There was no need to hurry. And she was moving under him by then, pressing herself against his fingers, so he had to pay attention and do this right.

Not that he really knew what he was doing.

But she was very responsive. _Very _responsive. He allowed himself one smirk over that. He _wasn't _ruining this after all.

And he also thought that a sensible girl like Hinata- and beautiful, and strong, and dignified- would have had absolutely nothing to do with Itachi.

Itachi would have never gotten this far.

Which was a stupid and childish thought, but Sasuke was still certain it was true, and he _did _take some pleasure from that. _This is mine. _Itachi could never have this.

And then she was moving harder, her little cries rising and he had to _really _pay attention. He had to hold her still because she was quivering so much, she'd squirm right out from under his fingers.

Strange that she came so hard, the sleek muscles in her thighs bowstring-tight under his hands as he pressed the tip of his tongue on that slippery little nub. He hadn't expected that, somehow.. so much tension and force coming from her small white body. Her little hands were white-knuckled on his shoulders- carefully avoiding the wound, but she was still almost hurting him, he might actually have bruises from this... From her hands. He found that... Amusing? Arousing? A bit of both, maybe.

That accomplished, he kissed her flushed forehead, and then felt her heart pounding through her throat, when he bent to kiss her there too.

And she reached down, her little hands stroking him in slow circles that reminded him of water, a pebble dropped into the stilled water of a koi pond. She wrapped her soft hands around him and he let her, and let go.. and didn't worry too much about staining her hands. He clenched at the pillows because he didn't want to leave any marks on her.

He realized he only had sharingan-memory of her breasts, the delicate pinkish folds of her inner body. He tried to keep his eyes open to watch her as she watched him. It was more intense that way, somehow, to really realize that she was doing this, connect those soft hands to her, the quiet mystery and dignity of the girl he was just starting to know. But he couldn't keep them open. He bit his lip and didn't really think twice about it, didn't remember fast enough that it was an old Orochimaru-habit, because Orochimaru liked to tease and torture until he broke his vow of silence. It was the same hard electrical jolt as usual, the same shower of white sparks, an instant or two of pleasure.. good enough. Better, maybe... different from doing this with a stranger. It meant something, that he liked her.. and his body knew and responded, singing like a million perfectly-tuned lute strings, or like the thousand running sparks of chidori, flickering hard for one sharp second-

-and then he was limp and sticky in her hands and he looked down.. and felt a bit ashamed of himself.

Hinata didn't seem to care. She just wiped her hands off on an edge of the sheets, and settled down into his arms. She was relaxed now, he noted, and felt a bit smugly responsible for that. He could maybe make her feel a bit better...

It went all right. It wasn't half as awkward as he'd have thought. But something felt a bit perfunctory, as if they were just executing a kata, together. He was conditioned by Orochimaru.. he'd tried to move out of that, but maybe it was all still muscle memory at this point. She was trained. She'd touched him with what she'd learned from those secret kunoichi techniques. Or so he'd guess. They both moved in ways they'd been taught by others.. and it would take time to really make this their own. But it wasn't a disaster. And that was something, given his track record with girls.

With anyone, really.

"How was that?" he asked her, and felt just a bit more smug when she murmured in soft, drowsy approval. She was tucked into his arms, and she felt warm and safe. It was all right after all. This part. The other part, with her family, with the ANBU...?

Well, it would all be in his face soon enough. He could enjoy this just a bit more, for now.

And then the old woman barged in again...

But he'd enjoyed himself for a while. He'd gotten Hinata away from the things that he knew he couldn't solve for her. For just a moment... but that was good enough for him.

----------------------------

Maybe the first time was supposed to be special. Hinata wondered if she should have slowed it down... or done things a bit more carefully. She'd sort of just... lost herself, rushed forward. She hadn't stopped herself. She asked Sasuke if it had been improper and he laughed, a velvety ruffle of his throat under her cheek, where he held her in the crook of his arm, his warm strong chest under her ear.

"It was fine with me." he said. He was running his hands methodically through her hair, as if he wanted to touch every part of her. And she wanted it.. she wanted this. She wanted to be his.

"Of course." he said, almost amused, almost-teasing, when she asked him if he would want that. "I'd rather be yours than his." His sannin-sensei... and even as they whispered now, so close, the dreamy afternoon was dissolving. She could see the fading gold slant of the sun that fell in hard slices on the end of the futon, their covered feet and legs curled together. She closed her eyes and thought that this didn't quite feel real.. or it felt _very _real, but it almost didn't quite seem like the same life she'd had, before. When she'd taken her enforced day off and ran through the forest. When she'd thought of him as a dangerous stranger... It was real but it was strange. And she didn't know how things would be, now. Would things change? She thought they would almost have to.

They both felt the chakra flare as the cottage's door seals were torn off.

Hinata imagined it, she'd seen it done before. Miya, or any family retainer, any higher-ranked member of the retainer caste of the house, they would clap their hands. The seals would burn and fall away. Sasuke twitched, and seemed annoyed by it. He seemed to suffering from a hangover after all, she saw the sickly blurring of chakra around him. He denied it, of course...

And when she asked him about the seal, he said, almost diffidently "Doesn't hurt." But then he caught her eye out of the corner of his, and looked almost... _almost _slightly sheepish. As if he saw that she could see it wasn't really true, and acknowledged that, but still had to keep up the facade of invulnerability. Hinata left him alone about it. There was nothing she could do.

Sasuke growled under his breath and sat upright, tilting his head slightly. The sunlight glistened over his shoulder and the messy spikes of his hair. The sun fell over his face, finding a strange deep redness in the edge of one eye . The Uchiha still had that strange iridescent quality, maybe, that the Hyuga had. But the Hyuga had no true eye color, just a strange kind of transparency. Hinata watched him for a moment, and then said "It's Miya."

And above their heads, there were very distant footsteps, and the clear voice of the old cook, ringing "Ok, kids! Time to wake up!" Brusque and strangely comforting as ever. Hinata exhaled slowly. And then she shook off the covers and got up.

"It's time, then." Sasuke muttered under his breath. He seemed to be suddenly in a bad mood. All Hinata could think of to do was to leave him alone. Not talk to him much, not bother him. As he turned to grab his pants from the floor, she touched his shoulder gently, then the tense jagged muscles in his back. His seal was bound up in strips of Neji's shirt, but she could see his whole shoulder and upper arm swollen livid red. It looked like it must hurt a great deal...

But his breathing evened out a bit, and he sighed. He turned and kissed her- businesslike- on the forehead. He seemed distracted and caught up in his own thoughts. Or maybe Hinata was too caught up in her own. She'd danced around these thoughts forever, it seemed- her father and her family and the house.. and Neji and Hanabi.. and Naruto and Sakura.. and the entire village, and being the heir at all. The ANBU and delivering Sasuke to the authorities without incriminating her family... she sat down heavily on the edge of the futon. She folded and re-folded her fingers together over her bare thighs. She was still a bit wet. Maybe she should have been ashamed.

Sasuke gathered up her clothes and handed them to her. "The old woman can't find us like this." he said. His eyes were squeezed shut against a headache, or irritation. Hinata held out her hands to take her pants and her discarded underwear, her crumpled jacket, the hidden kunai hanging heavily in it's lining. They were close, she thought, watching him glare at the ceiling as heavy footsteps clomped overhead. Closer, maybe, than anyone had gotten to him in a long time. But still, somehow, in the world outside, he would be distant, sometimes. He would be lost in his own anger and darkness. The same way he was before.

He patted her shoulder, and said "Hinata, we have to get moving." He said that a bit more gently. He helped her to her feet, and she leaned into him for a moment. She thought she would like to ask him to come closer. But how could she say that? She couldn't even find the words to ask him why he was this way, why he had to hold himself so distant from everyone.

_And I suppose I am no different, _she thought, glumly threading her arms into her jacket. She would be polite and behave the way she should, she knew. That was second nature. But behind that, some part of her wanted to curl herself into a defensive ball. She wanted to shut herself up in her room and refuse to see anyone. She didn't want to speak to anyone, have to deal with anyone. She didn't want to have to pretend everything was fine and she was all right- when she _wasn't. _

And she never would be again. She mechanically put on her clothes. And Sasuke frowned at the door, when a polite knock came. Hinata heard him slide the door back. She heard him talk to Momoe, Momoe's clear and confident voice, and Sasuke's irritated reply "Yes, she's here and she'll be out in a moment." Then he shut the door and turned to make the bed.

Hinata leaned against the wall and felt useless. She ran her fingers through her hair and made it somewhat presentable. She watched Sasuke lean into a gleaming patch of deep gold sunlight to shake out the sheets, and thought that he was so far away. And it wasn't just his own distance. It was her own now too.

She looked at her bare feet, toes a bit purpled from the cold.

They would find another moment to be close, she thought. But not now. She just didn't have any ability to raise her head, say anything, call Sasuke to her side and ask him to open up for her again, just a bit. She thought that he probably would do it, if she asked... but she just couldn't bring herself to ask.

It was only when he turned away from putting the room back in order that she met his eyes. He didn't look surprised at her mood. His ability to pick up on these things hadn't vanished. Though maybe he wouldn't have time to tend to her every minute... And she thought that he shouldn't have to, she shouldn't need so much comforting. It made her look away. She heard his footsteps whisper over the cold stone floor. He didn't say anything. He just gathered her up in his arms and for a moment, caught in their combined body heat, she felt protected, and separated from all these problems. Maybe what she really wanted was to just hide in his arms. Pretend it wasn't happening. Have it be someone else's problem. Someone else could deal with being the heir...

Then Miya rapped her knuckles on the wooden frame of the door, making it rattle. "Come on now, haven't got all day." And the dreamy morning, the strange magic of the afternoon- it was over.

--------------------

Sasuke did not like the old woman.

He _really _didn't like her.

He didn't even like her when she brought him alcohol.

Which she really ought of have done this time, too. Never mind that he _was _hungover.. damn it fucking _all._

His head was just starting to ring dully as she intruded- as she always did- as loudly and roughly as possible. He had thought that he would not get a hangover this time, that carving out the seal would confuse his body enough that it would just _forget _to punish him for the vodka. But.. no such luck. Hinata told him that the old woman was dissolving the seals, but it felt like she was ramming a ice pick right through his temples.

"Oh." he said, crossly, because he didn't trust himself to say more.

And Hinata was upset- about her father, clearly. And wasn't that a hellish subject all in itself! Sasuke had never met Hyuga Hiashi, but it was clear to him that Hyuga Hiashi was an intolerable _bastard. _This was just a statement of fact. Hinata had told him, for instance, the story of Hyuga Hiashi telling Hinata's sensei that he didn't care if she lived or died. Hyuga Hiashi had also smacked Hinata around- which was normal, you could say, for the more tightly-wound members of a ninja clan's power structure. But that didn't mean Sasuke had to like it.

And he _did not _like Hyuga Hiashi.

That made Hyuga Hiashi a difficult subject. Because Hinata needed to talk about him. She needed to work her own feelings and grief out. But the longer she spoke of him, the more Sasuke wanted to just tell her that her father was a total asshole and her tears and love were wasted upon him.

Of course, he _couldn't say that. _

But he couldn't stand this! So it was a bad situation, and he had a headache.. and he'd have to deal with _Naruto.. _and if the old woman said _one fucking word _about finding him and Hinata in the bedroom...

Instead the old woman said _every time I see you I have to bandage you up again. _She clucked over the burnt hole in his shoulder. He endured her scolding, and refused to show her any hint of relief when she produced herbal medicines that cut the pain down to a cool ache, something manageable. He didn't thank her. Hinata watched from across the room, guiltily. Sasuke maintained the fiction that yes, he had taken the seal out himself.

"Hmm." the old woman muttered, registering her disbelief of this story.

Then she kicked him out so she could do some mysterious Hyuga family thing with Hinata, and Sasuke sat on the couch upstairs.

He watched dust motes dance in the long slant of sunlight. Outside, ice gleamed at him from deep shadow. A heavy ruffle of snow sat on the windowsill.

No birds now, outside. Silence.

Alone now, with the sun setting behind the frosted-over windows, and that frost turning to threads of fire, Sasuke could hear himself think- again. The old woman's voice grated on him.

And here he was, left alone with the traces of his hangover. A bit of fuzz just forming on his face. His thoughts. The sharingan memories... He fitted his fingers into the seals of the katon fireball. The Uchiha coming of age ceremony, made breath and flame. Instead of the animal names for the seals, he paused and whispered "Hyuga Tetsuya..."

..who had been born with the mutation, the abomination, the strange black-eyed reversal. The sharingan.

Taking his strange bloodline limit, he seceded slowly from the main family. Sasuke had read the history. Committed it to sharingan-memory, to be recited in times like this, when he wanted to steady himself. He could build this temple of names under his feet and try to feel a bit more grounded. He held the tiger-seal, the flame-seal, his hands as two Uchiha fans, holding back the fire, and whispered "Uchiha Tetsuya."

The progenitor and the first. He left his twin brother to continue the Hyuga clan. And so the line went, generations faded away into dust and only remembered in the books of Hyuga, who were more circumspect with their distant history than even Sasuke's own family had been. There were stories in his family of distant ancestors, but nothing even close to these first-comers. Nothing until-

"Uchiha," he whispered "Madera."

Which was a subject not recorded by the Hyuga, a subject hidden carefully by the Uchiha, and a subject Sasuke still had too much of a headache to even consider thinking about.

But even the cursed one had a wife, and children. So the line continued, and the bloodline limit unfolded like a dark poisonous flower, a billion petals unfurling in the mangekyo sharingan Sasuke had glimpsed, blood-red and wet, livid, strange and horribly alive. Like a slick black insect crawling in the raw sword-cut in his father's abdomen, his father's intestines all wet and warm and spilling over the floor- _all of it- _recorded in loving detail by Itachi's blood-bright eyes. Imparted to Sasuke, in one harsh little second, like a beloved secret.

He still had not told Hinata of this, and he'd have to think a good deal before he decided to. Some things just did not bear retelling.

He didn't think he could get through it.. and more than that, he didn't think words would ever sum up what he remembered now, sharingan-bright. As clear as today's piercing sunrise, just as fresh in his memory. As if it had all just happened hours ago, and the bodies were still lying in pools of warm blood, all over his father's house, his family's compound. It was that close, as if he could reach out and touch it. The memory would always be there.. and it was Sasuke's now. Part of him. Woven into him, blood-black, like intricate stitches pulling his heart closed, so it could continue to beat.

And he could live-

..to kill Itachi, of course.

And for no other reason, at least not until so recently, when Hinata asked and he took her seriously.

_Live, _she said, and felt for his beating heart. And in her clean, perfect, protected life, couldn't even conceive of the dark secrets stitched into him, like sunken explosives. Land mines. She might put her hand on one, and he might just blow up in her face. He could imagine losing his temper, saying things that just _could not be taken back. _She wasn't like Sakura. She was fragile. She was pragmatic, she wouldn't take this from him. One harsh word. One hard _smack, _a backhand. He'd slapped Sakura before, seized her hand roughly in his.. a million times, it felt like. It wasn't what his father would have wanted. It wasn't how his parents would have wanted him to treat a woman. It wasn't _right. _

"Uchiha Fugaku." he whispered, having kept the line going as his thoughts spiraled through the dark recesses of Madera's and Itachi's secrets.. and his own disgusting bloody secrets too. He'd counted down twenty one generations, through war and shifting times, through five fires that ripped through the Uchiha district, and the sixth time that it was rebuilt. And now, in the hidden winter garden of the house of Hyuga, the dark circle completed back onto itself, he whispered "Uchiha...

...Itachi." And had to fight to get the word out. Had to treat it like a word- an _animal- _not a person. Because he couldn't handle that. He couldn't handle anything about this, it was a black sinkhole of unstable gravity. It's shockwaves rippled out and threatened to tear apart the facade of calm he had. His Otokagure kabuki mask, perfect and white. But Itachi tore him down to the scared, crying, runny-nosed child he'd been, tearing down the street, just out of his mind with terror. Itachi flicked his eyes and Sasuke was back- _in an instant._

And the line ended there. The clan gone, the heir a mass murderer. Only the lesser son now to carry the family name.

He broke the tiger seal to rub his aching eyes, the sharingan-memory was enough, his body ached in sympathy, remembering the mangekyo sharingan, the lost hours of tsukiyomi, the bodies so freshly dead he could still smell the blood... Tsukiyomi, all of the torment that just never was, anywhere but in this bloody hole Itachi had punched in his head.

He'd never been good at stopping himself from thinking useless things.

He thought the same stupid fucking things he'd thought for hours before. He thought that he was no different than before. And he still had done many things. He remembered in particular, the Valley. And leaving Sakura. He'd said something to her.. something stupid. But it was all he could think of to say at the time. His eyes felt like sandpaper when he rubbed them. The old woman's usual hangover-remedies were doing their work, but he was worried. He found himself picturing his father's face. Crystal clear. It shocked him a bit, to see it come back to him so clearly, when his family's faces had begun to recede with time.

His father didn't look very happy with him.

He thought about Hinata and whether his father would be happy with him about that.

But given how furious his father would have been about Orochimaru.. about Itachi.. about all of this mess, Sasuke didn't think Hinata would have made his father any angrier. His father would have already been apoplectic, so it really didn't matter what he did with Hinata. He didn't think his father would have remembered to yell at him about Hinata at all. Why bother? Did it even compare to the high crime of becoming a missing-nin? Betraying the fundamental values of the Uchiha clan? That it was the Third's killer was just the final atrocity, really...

And there he was. Alone in the dying sunlight, crying over the fact that his father wasn't around to yell at him about _anything. _Not anymore, and never again. And he wasn't sure if he believed in another world at all. Maybe after this life, everything just turned to ashes. Blood and guts and gore. He had to wipe his eyes because he heard Hinata's footsteps, and the old woman's heavy behind her.

Hinata was dressed a bit more formally than he was used to. The old woman had put her hair up, and done something to the swelling around her eyes. Sasuke watched her try for a brave smile, or an encouraging one- and half-succeed. He eyed the old woman and wondered if he should go to Hinata, try to comfort her. He wasn't sure if he wanted to show the old woman this. He hadn't had a chance to discuss it with Hinata, and he felt embarrassed, somehow. He didn't know how to behave like a proper boyfriend. He didn't feel like subjecting himself to the old woman's judgment, Hinata was forgiving, but this old woman didn't pull any fucking punches. He didn't want to hear any of her disapproval right now.

She spoke before he could do anything, which was just as well.

"Seems I'll have to put up with your cheerful face for some time," she mused.

He _really _didn't like her. He turned his face away from her and watched the dust instead. He didn't fucking like her. She should see that and just leave him alone.

"Seventeen children," she said, and her heavy boots came closer and closer. And then her hand was warm and heavy on his shoulder. He tensed, _he didn't like her, _but he just.. couldn't push her away. He could of, but maybe he just didn't want to. He didn't want it _enough, _hatred. He never had. And she said, "Should have been eighteen. That was Hiashi-sama's fault, and mine. I should have tried harder to get through to him."

Then she snorted, hard and rough.. but somehow trustworthy. He didn't think she was going to bullshit him about much of anything. So he lifted his eyes to look at her.

"Wouldn't have listened to me anyway, but I should have tried harder." She said that with a strange, faraway look in her eyes.

Hinata came to him, he was watching the old woman and trying to figure out if he should trust her or not, or if he even wanted too.. he didn't see her coming. He was distracted, and then she was next to him, clutching her warm arms around him, the expensive fabric of her kimono crinkling and probably being creased out of it's proper folds... it wasn't a formal or polite hug at all. He had to stop looking at the old woman because he didn't think he could hold his poker face. This was all so undignified.. but he just couldn't make himself scowl, shove Hinata away, cuss out the old woman- make it stop and go back to hating and having nothing and being empty.

Hinata's pulse whispered through her warm hands, and her cheek was alive and warm against him. Reminding him. _You're alive. _she'd said.

_Weakness, _Itachi's voice echoed in his head, but it wasn't enough to make him want to stop this.

And Hinata's tears were hot and immediate against his neck, he had to drop the whole pretense and just take her into his arms. The only way he knew how to comfort her was with physical things like this. Words felt too flimsy and too easily said. But this meant something. He almost forgot about the old woman.

Until she said, gruffly "Should have been eighteen.. but better late than never." Her heavy boots clomped away towards the door. "Hinata-sama, Neji-san is about ten minutes away from the gate. You might want to get a move on, hmm? And as for _you_, brat," she rapped her knuckles against the doorframe as she passed. "welcome home."


	13. Control

_I will become the heir and I will change this house._

Hinata made that vow in a haze of anger. Unthinking. Now that she had time to think, it was suddenly not as easy or clear. Nothing was, anymore.

Sasuke told her that she had already become the heir, so she was halfway there. This was persuasive reasoning. But he just didn't understand. She couldn't find the words to even begin to explain to him why it was just not that simple. She knew that he was right, but it just didn't work for her. It didn't make her feel any better. She was breathing hard, shaking. She suddenly had no idea what she could say to Neji. How did he feel about her father? Had he come to love him? Did he still hate him? Was there anything she could say to keep this from being as horrible as she imagined? She couldn't imagine anything else.

And she found herself remembering, too, another vow. Taken just as hastily, with even less forethought. Simple. _I will not run away from you, Neji-niisan. _And having said that, she simply stood her ground. That was all she had to do. Stand up for herself.

That was almost six full years ago. And she looks back over the years and thinks that she's made progress in terms of shyness. She can speak a bit more confidently now. But standing up to Neji... dealing with and living with and loving Neji... Had that ever become any easier? Just being with him... being close to him... As a member of her family, as someone who should have been as close as a brother, as a friend. Who should have been an ally in her clan, if not for these lines of power drawn between him.

There was peace now, between them. But she knew that it was at best detente. It was just not open warfare. It wasn't true peace. Maybe never. Because while her father was alive, he could stand between them. He could train both of them. He could just not discuss the hard facts of who would succeed him. Hinata could pretend it wasn't an issue. She could pretend that there was no main and branch house. She could pretend that she and Neji got along- that they really were allies. That they would be friends seemed too much to hope for. And now her father is dead.

Sasuke walked her to the gate through melting ice and snow, and the gathering darkness of evening. His hand was on her forearm, as if they really were a couple, if they had the official sanction of her family. Hinata didn't look at him and wondered numbly if they would ever be able to walk this way again, under the eyes of her house. Would the high council of her elders allow it? Would they accept him? She had her doubts that they would accept _her, _at that. To hope for more would be too much. It would tempt fate.

But she had to straighten herself up and make at least one decision. Sasuke wanted to know how she planned to break the news of his presence to her family. Hinata sighed. Her family would be furious. How could they not be? But how could she hide him from a house full of byakugan eyes? They would have to know eventually, anyway. She would have to do what she could to secure assistance for him from her family's lawyers, from her family's vast resources, their direct lines of influence over the Hokage, over the entire bureaucratic backbone of Konoha. She knew that her clan was powerful, and it should have comforted her.

But nothing could comfort her. Nothing could make this better. Nothing could stop what would happen next, could make her closer to Neji or somehow fix things between them. Nothing could ever make them into the friends they should have been. All she had was a fragile illusion of cooperation with him, built upon nothing more than a cooling of hostilities. So she went. And Sasuke walked with her...

...towards disaster.

---------------

Of course, Orochimaru would have laughed at him for this.

To be attached, to like her, to want to get back to that place of silence and no separation between them.

And, in a way, it really was a problem. It wasn't any different than it was before, when he was thirteen, and he worried- no, he _knew _that anything he felt, anything other than hatred just took him further away from Itachi.

Maybe for good reason. Maybe Itachi wanted this, Sasuke's full attention, his whole life devoted to nothing but chasing him.. and with no distractions. And no one else.. no friends, no lovers, no family.

Well.. too late now!

Maybe it was a disaster, at least _he _was one. He'd have to work this out in his own head somehow. How he could be this new, strange person.. who was with her and made some effort to act like an actual human being. But still hated Itachi, still would see Itachi dead- as if _that _would ever change, or should ever change. He hadn't changed.. not really. He'd traded Orochimaru for a life in the Hyuga household, and Kabuto's needling smirk for Hinata's gentle voice. That's all.

Well.. when he put it _like that.. _

Still, it was just so damned embarrassing. To be freaking out, or to just _not_ be fine, not be ok, be still messed up and worried about nothing. As if he really could have lived up to the promise of all that arrogance!

That was another reason, really, why he shouldn't have gotten involved with anyone. Not just because he couldn't handle it, but because his whole way of being, of carrying himself, it was _fake, _right? It was pulled together, a mask. It was impenetrable only so much as he held himself remote from everyone. And it worked, it worked well enough...

He exhaled very slowly, spacing it out. Breathing techniques still worked, he could defeat the edge of panic, anyway. He could _act _like he had it together. He could _give off that impression. _He could probably bullshit his way past a good chunk of Hinata's family- could they be any worse then the sort of vile people who had surrounded Orochimaru? Sasuke was well-practiced in acting like he was just fine and perfectly in control of himself- never mind that he never- ever- really _was._

And now he was here... with a reason, finally, to actually _want _to live. To have a life. For a change...

This really had been so much easier when he was thirteen... He could just shut everyone out. He was still miserable, of course. But he'd still figured he was doing himself some good. He'd thought he was bringing himself closer to strength, and mastery, and Itachi... and he'd been stupidly wrong, and he should have listened to Kakashi. And now he was in a mess. And it was his own damned fault, too.

But to hell with his problems, he was tired of them. And he wasn't getting anywhere. He distracted himself by smoothing Hinata's disheveled kimono sleeves back into place. Why she had to get dressed up for her cousin was beyond him. Fine- it wasn't beyond him, he remembered what clan traditions were like. They were overwrought like this. He was getting the _faint impression_, you could say, that the Hyuga were just a bit more ridiculously overwrought than most.

And as he did so, she hesitated. She didn't seem to be in any particular hurry to go meet her cousin. She leaned into him slightly, almost as if she were a child and he was her older brother; as if she'd mussed up her festival clothes and he had to make her presentable again. He frowned up at her, noting her tense body language.. and in fact, she was crawling with tension, full of it, like a taut, static electric field. She was quiet, but as he watched, she was breathing shallowly. Her eyes were just a bit wider than before... not good. He didn't like the looks of that.

"Hinata." he said, to get her attention. It was drifting. He was pulling her sleeves straight, but she was clearly preoccupied, even as she rested one hand on his good shoulder, as if she had to straighten her balance. She didn't stir, and now he noticed that she was nibbling at her lower lip slightly, as she tensely stood and stared into the middle distance. Preoccupied with what? There was the death and.. well, _fuck, _he knew all about the overwhelming feeling of that, but _this _was new, she hadn't been like this until the old woman had brought up her cousin.

_"Hinata." _he said, again.

She started, and blinked, looking back at him. She apologized just a bit more shakily than before. He stood up and tried to calm her the only way that he really felt up to, just putting his arms around her. Even that was a bit stupid, really, seeing as he just fixed her sleeves, and now they were going to get all crumpled again.

But she needed a moment. She was hesitating, he recognized that well enough. And he wasn't going to scold her or tell her what she should be doing, _that _would be being an asshole for certain. But he wondered if maybe he should nudge her in the direction of her duties? What was his role here? He'd thought that he would stand between her and her family, and shield her from them. He hadn't really thought very much about the particulars.

When she was close like this, anyway, it was hard to think straight about much of anything. She had that strange, slight, but somehow overwhelming flower scent. It was teasingly insubstantial.. there and gone. He could catch a slight whiff of it, then it would fade out again. He'd have to move closer to her, move to kiss her neck, or her forehead, try to catch another trace of it. It was probably some sort of technique involving dried flowers folded into her clothes. He didn't really know enough about flowers to know how that would work, just what he remembered vaguely from his mother's folded kimonos in the big wooden bureau in his parents' bedroom.

Or maybe it was genjutsu.. some sort of personal genjutsu that she cast, just for her own quiet amusement. Drawing him closer, constantly. There really was something a bit magical about her.. or maybe he was just losing his head. Maybe he really _was _falling in love with her, as embarrassing as that would be.

Well.. as long as goddamn _Naruto _didn't find out... As long as he didn't have to put up with Naruto teasing him about it, it would probably be all right. He wouldn't mind that much.

And, in fact.. her cousin really could be damned. If Sasuke had his way, he'd have them still be locked up in the cottage. He could comfort her a bit better then, if he could hold her in his arms. And he wouldn't have to worry about much of anything other then just giving her as much pleasure as he could. He could hold the world away from her. Surely she must have no energy for it. When he'd been in her position.. well, the _only _advantage of it, really, had been that he didn't have to deal with a nosy family. He, in fact, had _no family at all. _Funny how that worked... And, no- _actually- _it wasn't funny at all. He couldn't manage that gallows humor thing that some people could. It didn't soften these things for him at all...

He had to wipe the sour look off his face before Hinata saw- and he pulled it off. She was just entirely distracted, scattered. That she was somehow expected to carry out all these elaborate Hyuga traditions just seemed ridiculous. His own family had been rigid and insistent on formality sometimes... but this was just over the top.

And also, of course, he would have her all to himself. He felt a bit.. well, it _was _selfish to want her for his own sake, too, of course. To want to just take her to bed when she'd just lost her father? It was definitely a bit unseemly. He had let her take the lead, and decide what she was comfortable with.. so maybe he just felt like a sleazy bastard for what, having his own desires? For drying her tears and wanting to ease her suffering- but still not being able to completely ignore the fact that she had gorgeous breasts?

_Yes, _fine, he wanted her, he wanted her for himself too. That didn't mean that he didn't want to make her feel better, as well.

And it was all pointless anyway because she was going out to talk to her cousin. Her cousin, Hyuga Neji... and now that Sasuke thought about it, this _Hyuga Neji _wasn't just a name on the academy class list to him. Sasuke remembered him. Neji was the one, the arrogant, smirking, smug _son of a bitch _who'd called across the crowded room at him, no respect- _You. What's your name?_

Like he was so far beneath this Hyuga Neji that he would just have to snap to answer, like a student answering a teacher. Or a retainer answering a feudal lord- like Neji would snap his fingers and Sasuke should just _obey_. Right now. As if Neji was just entitled to his attention, his personal information. And everything else about him too.

He hadn't thought about it much since, but it had annoyed him, at the time. He didn't like it when people just assumed they were better than him. He didn't know anything else about Neji.. maybe a vague recollection that he was- supposedly- formidable. He didn't really like the way Hinata said his name... _Neji-niisan. _Brother Neji. Maybe just because he had his own unpleasant memories of saying that, _niisan, niisan, _powerless and hopeful. Maybe he just didn't like the way Hinata seemed a bit frightened of facing her cousin. Well, if _Neji-niisan _thought that he could terrorize Hinata then he was shortly to find out otherwise.

_Does he mistreat you, Hinata?_

He could ask her. Since when did he give half a damn about not being blunt and tactless? But.. yes, it was different. He didn't want to hurt her feelings. He didn't want to upset her- upset her _more, _that is, she was obviously already upset, and it wasn't exactly a mystery why. And more than that, if there was a situation with her cousin... well, would he have appreciated someone else barging into his own problems with... with...

All right, he _wasn't _going to think about Itachi at all. Just _cancel _that thought.

Ludicrous, though. To characterize it as _problems. _Like it was a pissant little family dysfunction. Like he and Itachi didn't get along well, like it was as simple as that. But...

_Neji-niisan. _Neji-_niisan. _Something definitely bothered him about how she said it.

So you could say that he had somewhat of a bad attitude- _understatement- _as he walked Hinata across her family's property to meet her cousin, _Neji-niisan. _

--------------

_You're kind and gentle. You seek harmony and avoid conflict._

Neji spoke to wound, then. To him, these were high crimes, they were reasons why she was so inferior. More than that, they were reasons whey he was right, and she was wrong, and she should just bow her head and give up.

He told her to, after all. Just- _give up, _and then the pain would end. She would not have to struggle any longer. She would be at peace then, she would have simply accepted her inferiority. She was nothing.. nothing.. worthless to the family. Less in ability to her little sister. Nothing to her father, an eyesore.. at best, something he tolerated. At that moment, as she walked as if half-asleep, numbly, she found herself missing her mother. Or the space where her mother had been, because Hinata had been taken from her mother too early to really remember her. And then her mother, very soon, was dead. And she was all alone. With her father and her sister. And with Neji.

He came at her with lethal force that day. His eyes... as he rushed at her. A hairline second before the flurry of jounin appeared between them. His eyes, then... strangely blank and terrifying in that blankness. As if his anger was impersonal. It was free-floating. It was almost completely unconnected to her. But she was in it's crosshairs, and always would be. They stopped him that time. But his eyes... she'd never forget them.

Hinata found herself clutching at something hard, white-knuckled, doing it completely unconsciously. After a moment she realized it was Sasuke's hand she was squeezing. She stole one guilty little glance at him. But he was staring grimly ahead, the muscles in his jaw all tensed. As if he were as preoccupied as she were. And as if he expected the worst, just as she did. He moved her hand from his arm to his own, and held it tightly. He didn't once break his gaze from the distance ahead. He maintained his focus.. she tried to do the same. She could just walk. She could focus on his hand, the warmth of his skin against hers. As long as she didn't think too hard... As long as she didn't think about Neji.

About what she didn't have.. could never have. Could she ever have been closer to him? But it was too late to be upset with herself. Telling herself that she'd failed now would bring him no closer. She closed her eyes and let her feet and Sasuke's quicker strides guide her, just for a moment. As if she were being propelled by irresistible forces. She just had to follow...

To think that she had friends now, teammates, a better relationship with her sister- such as it was, anyway. _Onee-saaaan! _Hanabi launching herself joyfully at Hinata's midsection, as if Hanabi almost meant to try to knock her over, as if a simple hug wouldn't be enough. It had to be a tackle-hug. Like to Hanabi, like all things to Hanabi, affection was a competitive sport. There would have to be a winner and a loser. Either Hinata's father would win.. or Hinata would win. It was as if Hanabi only switched teams, abandoned their father and then decided that she liked Hinata better... like she could only do one or the other. And even that said, Hinata remembered what it was like when her sister was set against her. So even this strange attitude of Hanabi's.. well, she was happy to have that much.

To think.. to imagine that she had _all _these things, and now Sasuke as well, something fairly close to a boyfriend, when she had never had one before. When she had never so much as gone out on a date at all. Her twelve year old self could not have imagined this in her wildest dreams. Her twelve year old self would have felt a shiver of worry, even wishing for it. Surely it would invite disaster. It would make her somehow less numb, less able to go on, day to day, in her silent nightmare of a family. Loneliness was a bit like being cold, that way. She could bear it more if she didn't think about it. And soon it just receded to a dull numb ache. To think that she could be the person she was now, coming from that place of darkness. There was no hope there. But being here, now...

...well. She felt no better. She still felt small. She thought that she would always feel this way. That nothing wouldl ever really change the dark, scared, inferior inner self, the one that was as familiar as her own reflection. And that sounded so familiar somehow. Sasuke had said, more than once-

_nothing can change it._

Nothing could improve things, nothing could make him anything other than a runaway. That was what he said- _nothing can change what I've done. _She argued with him. She offered reassurance and gentle words. She didn't.. really.. understand it, not bone-deep, not then. Not the way she did now.

Neji. To think that she would have to face him, to do this. If it were anyone else, it would be her father delivering this news. It would be something she would, more likely than not, just be left out of entirely. Her father and Neji would have their own close sessions of quiet talk, and intense training. Hinata would watch from outside. And it was so strange...

..she hadn't remembered that, not until now. Not how that felt. To just be locked out of things, left out. To be able to watch her father show affection and attention to someone. And that someone to just... not.. _ever.. _be her. Rarely be her.

Resentment was like anger. _She couldn't handle it. _ She had no idea where to put it, what to say, how to solve it- how could it be solved? She just bottled it up. It had worked so well before. She had no confidence, she had no ability to do anything. No one would listen to her. So being angry was nothing, her feelings meant _nothing _to anyone. So she treated them like nothing. And they went away...

..they never really went away.

They just simmered, locked away. Waiting for the right moment when she just could not deny them any longer. A moment when she would be put on the spot and would have to stand up and face her fears. She would have to.. she would just _have _to.

A moment a bit like now.

She suddenly couldn't catch her breath. Her heart was pounding.. and she didn't know why she should be so worried. It was just Neji, her cousin. She saw him quite often. He hadn't spoken to her harshly in some time. Maybe a time or two when he was tired or impatient.. but that wasn't the same. It didn't mean that he hated her. Or that he looked down upon her. And even if he looked down upon her.. even _though _he looked down upon her...

..and he should. Shouldn't he?

"He said that I was unsuited to being a ninja." She hadn't really meant to say that out loud. "He said.. I had no confidence.. and that I was inferior to everyone." Maybe he hadn't said that exactly. It was what she felt. She was sure she heard the accusation in his voice. "..he said that I was born weak and worthless..." She hadn't meant to speak. She didn't realize she had at all until Sasuke spoke, startling her.

"He won't be talking to you like that any longer."

With a kind of hard, implacable force in his voice. As if he simply would make it happen. As if there were a silent _or else _attached to the words, like an inscribed explosive tag. But she fought down her sense of panic, and told herself that it was silly- what could happen? Nothing could happen... nothing was wrong.

So she nodded. She tried to catch her breath. She tried not to think that it would be so bad.. it couldn't _really _be so bad. She tried not to worry that she had made it worse.

And as she walked, as the outer wings of the house crept by, the strange skeletons of trees melting into complicated shadows against a dim strip of fading daylight. As the house disappeared in the darkness, and there was only the outer buildings, then the courtyard and it's own thin, patchy winter garden over neat lines of gravel and flagstones. Then the far terraced silhouette of the wall. And it came closer and closer.. but somehow not close enough. There were gas lanterns being lit all along that wall, the servants were making up for the lack of power, cutting the darkness. Beyond that wall was Neji. Close at hand, maybe. Maybe just behind the iron shadow of the main gate.

She both wanted this to happen quickly and for it never to happen at all. She couldn't decide if she wanted to rush forward- get it over with- or hang back. It just happened.. second by excruciating second. The tension suddenly seemed unbearable, Sasuke's hard forward-facing glare, the tight muscles knotted in his hand. She suddenly couldn't stand it. She broke from him- she tore across those last few hundred yards. The gate slammed against her hands, bitingly cold metal. Out through the bars she could see nothing but the barest black outline of the familiar houses on the street, now lit up in places with their own warm glows of lanterns. A distant ever-present trickle of melting water dripped off the complex eaves and carvings of the gate's wooden frame and the solid wall around it.

No one in the street. No one that she could see...

...a faint flicker of body heat just a bit away, melting out of the shadows. So slowly... intolerably slowly. Sasuke was beside her, he'd sprinted after her, matched her speed. She barely noticed him. The gate creaked as she pulled it open.

"Neji.." she said, just forcing the words out of her throat before they were read to come. Tears were hovering right on the edge, threatening her. "Neji-niisan.." she could barely speak. "Neji-niisan...!"

And then, louder, louder then she should have spoken. She was so wrong, already, breaking every rule of Hyuga decorum imaginable. "Neji-niisan!" She hurled herself through the darkness until his chakra was blazing in front of her, and he was warm and startled and right there, his baggage striking the ground, his arms tense and startled, grabbing her shoulders.

"Hinata...?" he was too startled to remember the honorific.

"...Neji."

So was she.

And for a moment it was almost as if he held her and tried to comfort her. It was so unreal. And it _wasn't_ real, as soon as she thought it, realized it, he was pushing her away. He was saying _Hinata.. Hinata-sama.. what are you doing? _

What did she _think _she was doing?

She couldn't cling to him, bury her face in his shoulder, pretend that somehow there would be any way they could comfort one another.

She had to do this properly. She had to speak with authority. She had to meet his eyes, now that he was right in front of her. She had to.. she had to.. she would right this minute. But Neji wasn't looking at her. She looked up.. and he was looking over her head. Into the darkness. The gaslight cut hard shadows into the crumples the byakugan made in his skin.

"Neji-niisan.." _I have to tell you. _But it was just as well, she was crying all over the front of his traveling clothes. Cold water was pooling around her bare toes. She could barely speak.

"And _who _is that?" he said, suddenly, his sharp brows coming down hard over his clear pale eyes.

"I.. I mean..." she couldn't find the words. She had forgotten completely. And she had no idea what to say.

"I've seen that chakra before." Neji was already going through the beginning motions of pushing her aside. As if to protect her. Even as his tone turned harder, twisting sharply in her ears. "Hinata-sama, who is that with you?"

"It was me."

Sasuke's tone was just as hard. She looked back over her shoulder and he was silhouetted against the points of light on the gate. His face was in shadow. She saw Neji's frown deepen, as he struggled to place the voice, over many years of separation, and change, and she just _couldn't _do nothing.

Her throat was still sticky and tight with tears. "Neji-niisan, Sasuke is staying with us-"

"Sasuke? Uchiha Sasuke?" he snapped, interrupting her.

And then he _had _pushed her aside.

And then there was absolutely nothing she could do.

-------------

This _son of a fucking bitch _Neji tore Hinata to shreds at the chuunin semi-finals.

Naruto had told Sasuke all about it. Naruto was gibbering all over the place about how he was going to destroy someone named Hyuga Neji in the exam finals, that this Hyuga Neji had been cruel to another person that Sasuke could have not cared less about at the time. These names, strangers, people other than Itachi and himself- Hyuga Neji, Hyuga Hinata. Who cared? He didn't. But he remembered.

Sasuke _remembered _now.

Neji, Neji-_niisan, _pushing Hinata aside, touching her with familiarity- _as if he had the right. _Neji ignoring her, just pushing her aside. Sasuke had hung back, tried to let her do what she must. He had tried to stay uninvolved. He had drawn a line in his own mind, a line that he would wait for Neji to cross. He would wait for Neji to hurt her. Hit her. Speak harshly to her. But that _shove, _he just couldn't stand it. His temper roared and he couldn't have cared less about staying out of things that weren't his business- he wasn't going to stand there and let this asshole treat her that way.

So he took _Neji-niisan's _hand off her. With a good deal of force.

He really would have enjoyed bashing Neji's smug face in. Of course, it would have been a horrible thing to do to Hinata. He was already skirting the limits of decency with her- lusting after a newly orphaned girl? That she was of age meant nothing, he couldn't imagine it would ever hurt any less, no matter how old you were. Maybe being with him and doing those things really did comfort her, in which case he could justify them to himself. But beating up her cousin likely would _not, _no matter how hesitant she seemed around him.

So when Hinata screamed- _screamed _like he had never heard her before- for them to stop... he stopped. Instantly. Well into rearing back his arm to knock Neji's teeth out, at that. He had to shift his balance to correct for the halted motion. But he stopped.

And her cousin did as well. Not that this improved Sasuke's opinion of him one iota.

But Hinata was so upset, suddenly. Not that it was unexpected or unclear _why, _mind you. He had to get her out of the snow, she might catch a cold. He had the sense that she might neglect herself now, the way he had back in the early days after the massacre. Would he have cared if he'd just collapsed in tears out in the rapidly freezing slush, as the sun went down and the temperature plummeted? Would he have cared if he simply froze to death? No, he would have been glad. He remembered that mindset just fine. At least Hinata's asshole cousin had the bare decency to drop it long enough to get Hinata inside.

And then he had to leave them both alone. He had to have the bare decency to do that himself, even if he did not especially want to leave her alone with her cousin. He did not like the way her cousin spoke to her. And there really was something, some tinge of sound signifying hidden feeling, in the way she said his name. _Neji-niisan. _To be jealous of that was ridiculous- of course. He couldn't expect her to speak with less familiarity to someone she had known all her life. He really had no idea why he was jealous at all... maybe just of the closeness. Not 'closeness' exactly. Of this _Neji-niisan _for just being a part of her life, undeniably, forever. Sasuke still was uncertain that her family would look kindly on his involvement with her. An 18 year old clan head would not have complete command, certainly not right away. She would be subject to the voices of elders and aunts and uncles. She could be overruled. What if they simply forbade her from seeing him? What then?

It pissed him off, thinking about it. So he stalked out of the room and went to find to find the old woman.

He wasn't much enjoying the arrival of the Hyuga family so far. He'd gotten comfortable with being around Hinata herself, having an empty house and privacy, and no distractions... no one else demanding her time and attention. She would have to return to her academy job, and he would have to go deal with the Hokage- and standing in between him and that, the necessity of dealing with his old team... Naruto and Sakura both screaming in his face. There was really nothing that _didn't _annoy him at this moment, nothing in the immediate future, anyway.

The old woman was in the busy inner rooms of the kitchen, as he would have expected. The place was a nightmare of activity and boiling pots and loud apprentices, people constantly streaming in and out. He found the old woman in the middle of that maelstrom of noise and servants, barking orders at them, red-faced from the steam. She was tending a pot of miso, preparing meals for the arriving family. Or so he would guess. He went up to her and told her it was important. He needed to speak to her.

She harrumphed and told him that he had no manners. But it was perfunctory as scolding went, and she took him into a pantry where there were, at the moment, no other servants. But he could hear their constant background hum of chatter and motion through the door, and it sawed at his nerves. He said to her:

"Why is Hinata afraid of her cousin?"

Because, really, what the _hell _is going on with that? He was not such an antisocial idiot that he couldn't understand that Hinata would probably hate a scene or a big conflict more than anything. But if her cousin was in the habit of pushing her around, hurting her, then Sasuke damned well had a right to know about it. And the old woman had a steely manner that convinced him that he could pretty much ask her anything.

Moreover, all the scolding aside, she'd yet to give him an annoying bullshit answer. Which is more than he could say for Orochimaru. _Or _Kakashi, for that matter.

The old woman still was clearly tallying up portions and ingredients in her head. He had at most, half of her attention. She shot a hard look at him, unreadable, and as she pivoted her arm to look at her wristwatch, she said "There's a very long history there and you'd best stay out of it."

Which was direct, at least.

"Does he hit her?" Sasuke demanded, because he really had no patience and he definitely had the impression that all this _long history _aside, he probably wouldn't like what's going on between them. Hinata was very gentle girl, and this Neji asshole was brusque and arrogant with her at the gate.

"If he does, she's fully able to hit him back." the old woman rumbled, clapping him- hard- on the back. "If you've got nothing to do, then there's work to be done around here."

So he stalked off, dodging hurrying servants, knowing nothing of note that he didn't before.

And as he avoided the room that Hinata and Neji had gone to, the tatami room where he can see a faint impression of shadow against the paper wall from down the hall, he couldn't have possibly _not_ noticed it. Tension. Tension rippling through the air, almost subsonically.. even he could feel it.

Even if he hadn't learned how to read Orochimaru's mood in every silent, instantaneous way he could, pick up every little passive clue, even then he could have felt it. He didn't even have to find the two of them, Hinata and her cousin, to feel the static discharge of their argument. The silence was full of that heavy rumble. And..

..chances were, the old woman was right. Was it really his business? He knew that while he'd never bothered to much care about courtesy, he ought to at least try not to make things worse for Hinata. If he were to burst in now, drag this asshole Hyuga Neji outside by the scruff of his neck... Well, would it be about actually helping Hinata, or would it be about feeding his own damned ego? Feeling superior to Neji.. Neji who certainly put in a lot of time and effort into letting Sasuke know _just _how inferior Neji felt he was. But Neji was upsetting Hinata. Neji was being a bastard about, as far as Sasuke could tell, longstanding family grudges that he could have just kept his dumb mouth _shut _about for a few days, at least.

So Neji really did need to have his ass kicked hard, and fairly shortly. But out of respect to Hinata, Sasuke sat on his hands. And left them to it. And _hated it. _And did it anyway.

He trained, out in the slush. It soaked his pantlegs, and soon froze the fabric into stiff clumps. The added weight was so slight, but it annoyed him, it irritated him to have to correct his balance for it.

He just couldn't focus properly.. but maybe that was the seal. Even knowing what it _was, _his own homicidal madness where he simply did not actually _have _that particular mental problem before, he missed it. He missed it's crawling warmth of power, the security of knowing that the power was there, sitting in reserve. It was a blood pact, but if necessary, Sasuke could call on it. He could be strong, regardless. For once.. _for once, _he might have come close to Itachi.

And maybe... well, _maybe _if he really could become some sort of legal adoptee of the Hyuga clan, their money and resources would allow him to get the noose around Itachi's neck. His fists hadn't worked out very well as instruments of vengeance so far. Maybe he would have felt weak before, using whatever he _could, _anything that worked, just to get Itachi wiped off the face of the earth and finally punished for what he'd done...

But now, Sasuke thought that what he really wanted was just to make Itachi feel what he'd felt himself. He'd like to see Itachi suffer this way. He'd like to feel that there was actually some sort of meaning or purpose behind any of it- but he knows there was none. There was no grand lesson here. It was not that Orochimaru was right, that the only purpose of anything is the strong abusing the weak, but it's not that there is any great purpose to _anything, _either.

So Sasuke would have to make his own closure. He would have to find his own comfort. To kill Itachi might not be enough. If Itachi was dead, he would be at peace. He would feel nothing. If Sasuke couldn't _kill _Itachi, surely having the resources of a vast and powerful ninja clan in his grasp would allow him to make life significantly difficult for Itachi- at least. Maybe it wouldn't be so satisfying to just strike Itachi's head from his shoulders- quick and painless- too painless for this _murderer, _who carved Sasuke's mother open _slowly, _like he was enjoying himself. Maybe Sasuke would rather extract Itachi's blood with that same agonizing slowness. He wouldn't mind seeing Itachi squirming _right now, _in fact. _That _would probably improve his mood for certain.

So there were plenty of interesting possibilities to think about. He just left the whole house to that tense argument which he was forbidden to touch. He had felt it in progress, even as Hinata and her cousin spoke too softly for him to have heard. He stayed out of it... The old woman was a real bitch, but she clearly wasn't stupid. She was probably right...

Funny, though...

To ask if Neji hit Hinata... this was more something you'd ask about a boyfriend or a husband, wasn't it? Sasuke hadn't really noticed that. Not until this moment, as he perched on the top of a taijutsu log and was distractedly molding chakra. Neji was her cousin, they were related. But there was just such a strange feeling between them. He couldn't help but think that there was something going on. What, he had no idea.

_Something._

-------------------------

It was strange, Hinata thought, that while she had passed the long night, and the drowsy day after it, thinking of who she should worry about...

...she had all but forgotten Neji.

But maybe it wasn't strange at all. She had never really lost the habit of just trying not to think about things that were difficult, and that upset her. And, as well, feeling so helpless and powerless that she just naturally assumed she could do nothing about them. She would still remember, she would be depressed. But she would try to put these things out of her mind. Eventually ordinary everyday concerns would take their place.

But it wasn't strange.. not at all. It just wasn't all right... even if Neji no longer actively bullied her. That's what Kurenai-sensei called it- _bullying. _Hinata hadn't really thought it was that, not exactly. She was just so used to things being this way between herself and Neji, just another Hyuga family secret, not to be spoken of outside the house's walls. Maybe it made a difference when Neji insulted her in front of everyone at the chuunin exam. Maybe that was what made a difference- to her. To hear that others saw and did not agree with him, maybe. But she was just so accustomed to it. And she _was _frightened of him, he was older. He was bigger than she was. She naturally wanted to look up to him, and be guided by him. It hurt when he treated her that way, but she just never got to the point of questioning it.

...and maybe the way he said it, _you're completely unsuited to being a ninja, _just made it sound like such unassailable truth. She couldn't even begin to argue with him. It was only that her back was already to the wall, when she faced him at the exam. She was cornered already.. so she _had _to answer him, try to deny it. He was right, though... she had no confidence.

Maybe a little. But not enough.

Things did change after that. But she had to admit, now, that they never really came that close. In a storybook, she thought that her father's death might have changed something. It might have made Neji just throw down his baggage on the spot and hug her tightly. It might have made him comfort her. It might have brought them close, finally.

But this was not a fairy tale. And it was not magical, there would be no magic solution here, to fix years of separation. For a while, later, she had thought that it was the house politics that separated them. If not for that, then they would have been friends. Neji would have been an affectionate and kind older brother. But.. now, having come to know him a bit more, if not come very much closer to him, she really wondered. Maybe they would have always been estranged. It was the Hyuga themselves that created these inhuman rules and divisions, after all. She and Neji had that same blood, those same preoccupations. This house was not an outside thing that unilaterally forced them apart. It was a living ideal, a part of them. They were part of it, and could there ever have been a better argument for the innate hostility between the main and branch houses than herself and Neji?

So she had thought, numbly, that she might suggest that he break the Hyuga seclusion rules and invite Tenten over. Tenten was his fiancée, and Hinata knew that Tenten was closer to Neji than she herself could ever be, now. As the clan head, she could give him permission to do this. And maybe.. maybe Tenten could explain a bit to Hinata herself what Neji was feeling. Tenten had an easy, confident manner, and she seemed to understand Neji perfectly. Much better than Hinata herself ever could. So Hinata would have to put aside her own guilty jealousy- not of the romantic relationship, just of the _relationship _at all, being able to have one with Neji, something that was denied, clearly, to Hinata herself. She just couldn't have it. So she would have to put that aside, and do this.. in the hopes that someone would be able to comfort Neji, since he would never allow Hinata to do it herself.

And all the while, she was watching as if in slow motion, Sasuke rapidly advancing on Neji, all aggressive body language, and you could tell his intentions even before he snatched Neji's hand off her shoulder. Neji's pointed finger was just appearing, jammed into Sasuke's chest- clear provocation on both sides. Her throat was still sore and she suddenly, again, couldn't speak. She managed a whisper- "Stop.." and she had to push the words out. They came out raggedly, "Stop..!" She had seen plenty of little boys start schoolyard fights with one another to recognize what it looked like, she finally found her teacher's voice- _"Stop! _Neji-niisan! Sasuke-kun!"

And that never failed to get results. Both of them froze and looked over at her, almost guiltily.

It was only habitual reflex, though. Hinata would have reacted the same way to the commanding tone of her sensei- instantaneous. And it only lasted a second. Then they were pushing one another again, the fight was starting. And it was going to be an ugly fight, she could just _tell, _from the nasty, sharply hostile way they already looked at one another, struck out at one another. She suddenly _couldn't stand it, _to have her father dead, and her cousin and her... well, whatever Sasuke would be now to her, to have them at one another's throats- she was screaming at them. _Stop it! Stop it! Stop it right now! _Screaming with her vision blurring with tears, almost beside herself. As if she was looking from the outside in.

She was crying, she couldn't see clearly. The world itself, time itself, seemed to blur. She had no clear memory of how it happened, but she was taken by them to the central wing of the house, past a blurry maze of gaslights and the soft-touch impression of chakra from bustling servants. The gentle warmth of space heaters brushed over her bare toes, and she realized that she was barefoot. One of them was carrying her sandals. The other was carrying her. She couldn't quite remember which one of them had done what.

Grief was strange.. it came down on her like an avalanche, crashing in on her, like it too was something that came from outside of her. As if it wasn't even a part of her, it was alien in some way. It didn't feel like a normal or proper feeling. It still felt wildly disconnected from everything, from what she remembered the world was supposed to be like- herself, her sister, Neji and her father. A simple, uncomfortable balance. With her father gone, there was suddenly no telling how anything would be anymore. She found herself wishing that there was someone else.. someone who could just appear and take her father's role. She found herself wishing, out of nowhere, for her mother. As if her mother could be wished back into life. Her mother could just take her in her arms. She could hide her face and not have to worry. She thought that if she were on a mission then she would have to pick herself up and act professionally. She would have to lock up her feelings somehow. Maybe she would be able to do it, if necessary. But she just couldn't do it now. She couldn't force herself to do it. Some part of herself just couldn't tolerate any more distraction, these things just could _not _be put out of her mind.

Back to herself, now, sitting in the warm outer room of the kitchen. The servants had made a fire in the old fireplace. She could see the winking red filaments of space heaters set by the wall. There was a box of tissues in her hand, and a cup of tea steaming in front of her. And Neji and Sasuke were there, sitting near her. Distracted, it would seem, momentarily with her. As if that could keep them away from one another.

As she blinked and daubed at her eyes, she saw that they were very carefully _not _speaking to each other.

It was Momoe, leaning over the table with the heavy earthenware teapot, who was speaking to both of them. Reassuring them. Telling them that Hinata just needed a minute. That yes, there was a death. That Hinata would have to inform Neji was not something Momoe had to say, Hinata saw in the fine tinge of worry in Neji's eyes that he understood that perfectly. He was waiting for her.

It just seemed cruel, this little bit of concern and gentleness from him. It was a reminder of what she couldn't have. What just didn't work or exist between them.

And.. as Neji waited, and Hinata sniffled... nothing happened. Sasuke avoided looking at Neji, and Neji avoided looking at Sasuke. Both of them looked at her instead.

Waiting for her.. as if she were really in charge. Waiting for her to act as if Neji had been wrong, all those years ago, and she actually deserved this.

And soon enough Sasuke had vanished. It seemed like that to her, that she just lifted her eyes from her teacup and he was gone. She had heard him tell her that he was going to go train, and she had nodded. She had registered that.. about halfway, maybe. She'd nodded robotically. It took her a moment to remember that it had happened. And then, there was nothing for her to do but miserably wipe her sore, wet eyes, and sniffle. And look at Neji across the table and wonder what she could say to him... possibly.. to make this even a little bit less impossible than it would have to be.

He took pity on her. He bowed his head and spoke calmly, almost gently. He took her away from the eyes of the servants, their pitying quick glances, since they all knew exactly what was going on. He closed the door of the tatami room as Hinata sniffled more and tried to blink the tears away from her eyes enough to see the candles. He came up behind her on soft, catlike feet. And then his white, strong hands were taking the matches from her. And he was lighting them himself, because her fingers were numb and clumsy. She was just sinking down on the mats. Watching him. Wet and helpless, the same way she'd been for what seemed like an eternity.

If she imagined this moment at all, she'd imagined it being impersonal. Neji would either look out the window, or he would just stop in his paces and look straight ahead. He would wait for her that way. That he sat down with her and tried to be kind to her just made her want to bury her face in his arms and cry long and hard.

"Who was it?" he said, finally. It seemed that a very long time had passed.

His right eye picked up a tiny warm glint of candlelight. The house all around them hummed with the generators. And with activity. Something about the late hour, the stillness of Konoha all around them, all it's power lines still collapsed, the empty house full of anticipation and all the gaslights... It all was like a stage being set, like the world was holding it's breath, waiting. She would have to tell her sister, too, when Hanabi came home. She would have to face the council. She would have to even argue for Sasuke, try to get her family to protect him from the Hokage, from whatever charges stood against him. It was all so overwhelming. She felt that she hadn't slept a wink. Grief sucked all the energy right out of her. She just had nothing in her, nothing left to make this graceful.

"My father." she said, her voice sounding thick and tearful to even herself.

She thought far too late that maybe it was insensitive to say _her father, _rather than his uncle. That was who her father was to him. A teacher and mentor. There was an entire relationship there, carried out right in front of her. Only slightly hidden from her, in the occasional tatami room meeting when her father would summon them both, then dismiss her quickly. But it was entirely out of her reach. It was something she could never be part of- and could probably never understand.

She couldn't look at him, either. She couldn't bear to meet his eyes after she said it.

She also couldn't imagine how he would react. Would he be angry? Would he feel the way she did, like it just wasn't true? Like it was a horrible and hurtful lie.. that the world just _couldn't_ be this way, there had to be a chance for them both to be able to come to terms with this man, her father, his uncle. They just _had _to be given that time, because it was so unbearable to be left this way. No answers, no ending. Just nothingness, just _gone. _No final words. Neji had never even gotten to speak to him before he left. At least Hinata had gotten to see him one last time. Neji would have to blame himself for not going on the trip.. as if that could have somehow saved her father from dying.

And, in the end, all she heard was Neji getting up. His smooth, well-paced footfalls whispered across the mats. Then, the door sliding back, and closing. He didn't say anything. He just left.

And maybe.. she should have expected exactly that. Neji was a very private person. She had hoped, stupidly- she thought now- that they could somehow share their grief and help one another. But maybe that would not have made Neji feel better. Maybe it would have made things harder for him, to have to take care of her, too. His grief was his own- private. She had no claim on it.

So she just sat and cried herself out, like tears were something you could run out of. Then she slowly got to her feet, and went to bed. Because she just couldn't think of what else to do, to say. There was nothing to do but wait for Hanabi. And then wait for the rest of the family, steadily growing closer, somewhere in the silent, dark village beyond.

_---------------------_

Neji-niisan. Neji-niisan. Neji-fucking-_niisan. _

Of course, all circumstances aside, Sasuke did hope that he'd have a chance to have a good solid fight with Hinata's cousin. It _had _crossed his mind, yes, that bashing around the favored son of his alleged new 'family' wouldn't make the best first impression for him. So, no matter what, it would probably be best to let _Neji-niisan _throw the first punch. But he didn't necessarily have to use his fists. He could take some satisfaction from a verbal argument, maybe, there were ways to rip people apart with words. He had been a dedicated student of Orochimaru the psychological torturer, after all. He couldn't say that Hinata's cousin didn't deserve a bit of his own medicine, if Naruto's story was to be believed.

And you could say that he had taken an instant dislike to this person, Hinata's cousin. Sasuke remembered who he was now- renowned-genius-Hyuga-Neji. A real genius. Not just a fake genius, a dedicated ninja who presented an image of it all being effortless, but still trained his fingers down to the bone every chance he got. Not, that is, like Sasuke himself.

You could say that Hyuga Neji was more like Itachi- an excellent reason to dislike him in itself. Hyuga Neji, Konoha's strongest genin- _ever_, the other one had said. The one with the unreal taijutsu. The one Sasuke had trained like a maniac to match, so he could bring his own body up to his sharingan memory of that insane piledriver attack- something-lotus, he couldn't remember the exact name. That amazing taijutsu that had torn up the muscles in his legs to match, so that he was a mess after the chuunin exam broke up, and that episode with the crazed Sand-nin was over. That first one was Hyuga Neji's teammate. Sasuke really had no problem with hating Hyuga Neji by proxy for that first humiliating defeat at the hands of his _teammate_, either.

But, it turned out that it was just his lucky day. _Neji-niisan _came to find _him._

He had trained himself to exhaustion, which was always an excellent way to deal with any particular personal problem he might have. Then, many hours later, he let himself back in the house, allowed the old woman's house servants to interrupt him long enough to change out of his wet clothes, then padded upstairs on his damp bare feet to go see if Hinata was there.

He got close enough to see that she was. Her room's door was closed, and lantern light glowed within. He could sense, he thought, the tiniest change in air pressure from her soft breathing. He could almost feel the slow waves of her chakra. He had no byakugan, he couldn't see it. But he could feel it. He was certain he could. And you could say that he was thinking about her, and he was somewhat distracted...

..when her asshole cousin's voice just materialized behind him.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Speaking to him as if he was somehow caught doing something wrong. Like he was in _big trouble _now, or something intolerably arrogant like that. Not that he was even slightly surprised. This son of a bitch probably used his byakugan to spot him halfway across the house, and then slowly tracked him, carefully concealing his presence. It really wasn't that hard to sneak up on a distracted person, no matter how strong their ninjutsu was. And clearly _Neji-niisan _had wanted to wait until he caught Sasuke red-handed, approaching the bedroom door of his cousin. As if this was somehow some great crime.

And it really irritated him. He didn't know what he was going to do if the whole goddamn Hyuga clan was going to treat him like a filthy stray animal that had somehow snuck into the house.

"I'm going to check on Hinata." he said. Because he fucking well _did _have the right. And while he had not discussed this with Hinata, he could imagine that she had not concealed anything from her cousin. She would probably see the absolute ridiculous futility of hiding a relationship from her byakugan-eyed family. And more than that.. he suspected she wouldn't want him to feel that she wanted to hide her involvement with him. She wouldn't want him to think that she was ashamed of him.

Not that this asshole gave any impression of understanding any of that. Sasuke didn't bother to turn around, but he could hear the note of disgust in her cousin's voice.

"And who said that you could be up here?"

"Hinata did." he said, simply. And looked briefly over his shoulder, just enough to register the look on asshole-Hyuga-Neji's face as he said it.

And Hyuga Neji's hard white-eyed glare told him that Hinata absolutely _had_ told him all about it. And from the looks of things, the asshole didn't like it one bit.

But too bad for him.

So Sasuke just leaned against the wall and slapped an Orochimaru-smirk on his face; and faced the bastard. He wondered vaguely if he was going to have to introduce _Neji-niisan _to the concept of Hinata being a grown woman- one who could involve herself with anyone she liked, regardless of what her cousin or her idiot family thought about it.

Hyuga Neji just lifted his chin slightly, so he could look down his nose at Sasuke just a tiny bit more. He was already taller, but he seemed to just want to be able to look down a few more millimeters, convey his contempt just a bit more. As if Sasuke hadn't already gotten the message. As if it was somehow _unclear. _As if the bastard just wanted to rub it in, as hard as he could.

"Do you know what the Hyuga clan thinks of the Uchiha?" he said. And now he couldn't even seem to bother to disguise the mocking tone in his voice. He had very straight features, aristocratic. Long fine dark hair.. like he was just so genetically pure and perfect. Like he was a pedigreed purebred, not a filthy hybrid like Sasuke himself- all wild spikes and demonic eyes... Like the Hyuga had never been touched by a demonic hand. They were just so clean and perfect. He spoke like Sasuke had no idea, like he would just be too stupid to understand any of this.

But it wasn't as if the Uchiha didn't have their own genetic talents to protect. It wasn't as if he was somehow _unaware _of what went on inside of a noble ninja clan. So he just told the asshole that he did, thank you very much. He was well aware. Implying, you could say, with a slight inflection of his voice that Hyuga Neji was wasting his time. That Hyuga Neji was boring him.

But Hyuga Neji didn't react. His glare had frozen into a small, mocking smile. His cold white eyes were absolutely steady. Locked. Like he knew something Sasuke did not, like he was savoring the idea of it.

"No you don't." he said. "You have no idea."


	14. Danger

What the _hell _was wrong with Hinata's family?

Sasuke had met one member, heard stories about another, and so far he was deeply unimpressed. An unbelievable asshole of a father, and this other son of a bitch, Neji? Sasuke's own family had been far from perfect, but this was ridiculous. And these people seriously believed that they were somehow the absolute pinnacle of perfection? Sasuke remembered clan politics well enough to know that _all _the noble clans of Konoha boasted that they were the strongest in the village. That was so normal as to be hardly worth noticing. But these Hyuga... how the hell did they sing their own praises with a straight face? Couldn't they see how _fucked up _they were?

Hinata's _asshole father, _for instance. He'd said to Hinata's face- in front of multiple witnesses- that it would be better for the family if she was dead. That they 'didn't need her'? Hinata's voice had quivered unconsciously as she'd told him about it, and the sound magic told the tale. It spelled out the pain so well that Sasuke winced, just to hear that much raw feeling. And that asshole, that asshole, that _asshole-! _Thinking he could treat her that way, that he could just fucking _destroy _her if he wanted. She was his child, therefore he could do whatever he wanted. Sasuke was _glad _this bastard was dead. And a heart attack wasn't a nice way to go, it hurt. It took a few minutes. Sasuke couldn't give less of a fuck, he was happy that this asshole had suffered, and then just _dropped dead. _He was delighted.

His own father, for all his failings, had never, _ever _done anything like that.

Well, no- his father had merely completely ignored him. He'd worked himself to pieces just to get his father to actually _look _at him, see him- and half the time his father just wouldn't notice at all. Even when his father started to pay a bit of attention to him, even then it was false. It wasn't about _him, _it was about Itachi. His father only looked at him _at all _because Itachi was starting to disobey. He was just a momentary substitute, and an inferior one at that. And he _wasn't going to think about this, _not now. Not while Hinata needed him, and he couldn't freak out or drop into a depression. And with her cousin lurking around, he couldn't afford to anyway. He had to keep his wits.

And.. about that.

So Neji was the strongest of his generation. Neji was already a jounin and had become one when he was fourteen. So Neji had the byakugan, and all Sasuke had was the inferior, cursed sharingan. No matter- he _would _win this fight. He'd pull out forbidden snake jutsus on this Neji asshole, if necessary. He didn't give a damn, he was going to pound this asshole into the ground because Neji _richly _deserved it. And it simply had to be done. He'd do whatever it took.

And another thing- just what the hell did this Neji asshole think he knew?

Sasuke turned and caught him in the full pinion of the sharingan, looked hard and saw all the slight flickers of gentle fist in the tiny motions Neji made, that no one could really stop their body from making, the muscles jumping ever so slightly, as if with the fluid pressure of each heartbeat. The gentle fist- useless to Sasuke, who could fit his hands into the motions instantly now, but who could never have the byakugan to make it all work.

And in all honesty, sharingan-taijutsu took it's toll. Kakashi had been the first one to show him that, showing him how to push and force his body to keep up with what he saw, as Neji's taijutsu-expert teammate zipped through his perfect memory. And he'd done it. He'd managed. He still wrenched and strained every major muscle in his legs, doing it. Worth it? Maybe before his ankles and knees had swollen up in protest.

Of course he went into seclusion. _Make it look effortless. _Maintain the facade of genius, like he was one- _like he was Itachi. _That's what everyone thought, anyway. He was just smaller, lesser-Itachi. He was the only tiny scrap of Itachi this village had left.

So maybe that was what asshole Neji thought he knew? That Sasuke was the same blood as Itachi, that Sasuke was doomed and soiled with that same blood? That Sasuke was guilty, guiltier by far than Itachi, because he had just been too weak to stop it all from happening...?

"I'm going to see Hinata." he said, because if Neji had anything of note to say, he could just _say _it, and Sasuke was going to go look in on Hinata because it wasn't any of Neji's business- and Neji could just go fuck himself if he didn't like it.

Sasuke actually didn't much give a flying _fuck _if Neji was a genius, Neji was the strongest, Neji was a real prodigy- _Neji was not going to stand between him and Hinata. _Neji could mind his own goddamn business. Sasuke would be quite happy to beat the crap out of Neji if Neji wanted to force the issue.

Neji-_niisan. _Neji-_fucking-_niisanAnger was carelessness, but anger was hard _focus, _too. Anger and jealousy were crystal-clarity, Sasuke could _see _everything about this Neji asshole, the way he just thought he was so much better than Hinata, but still wanted to push her around to make himself feel big. And why? What was he missing? What bitter little hole in him made him want to put in all that effort to build himself up while tearing her down? _Everyone wants something, Sasuke-kun _Orochimaru was a sick piece of garbage. _Everyone has something you can use to control them. _Orochimaru was a genius, too. _Everyone has this weakness- find it and seize them by it. _Orochimaru had an expert torturer's grasp of human nature. This piece of _shit _Neji had something he felt so bad about, something that made him want to dig at Hinata, tear Hinata to little pieces. Sasuke would find out what it was, he'd get his fingernails into Neji- and then he'd tear Neji apart.

Casually. As if it were nothing. _Exactly the way Orochimaru had. _So many times. Right in front of him. Sasuke had the sharingan memories. He had the malice to want to do it. He had everything he needed. He had this bastard square in his sights. He'd wait for Hinata to feel better, to grieve, to put this behind her. Then he'd tear this asshole to shreds.

-----

There was a conversation with Neji, lost somewhere in the fog Hinata was in, now. She had sleepwalked through it, as if she wasn't there at all. Sasuke rose from the table, spoke to her briefly, then left to train, Neji had looked hard into the far wall, his face as still and grim as a stone statue. As Sasuke's footfalls faded, he said to her, in a tense half-whisper: "Hinata-sama, _what is he doing here? _He's a missing-nin! He's in the bingo book as an S-class criminal!"

But even as he said that, and his voice was sharp with disbelief, he didn't look at her. He almost studiously avoided looking at her.

Hinata tried her best to explain. She had found him. She hadn't wanted him to be tortured and killed. She knew he was a missing-nin... but she just couldn't do that to Naruto and Sakura. And later, even though it had begun as something that was about them, her friends.. it turned into something else.

Neji listened without comment, as she blew her stuffed nose in the clumps of wet kleenex that seemed to accumulate around her like damp snow, wherever she went. She didn't look at him either. She didn't want to see the look in his eyes, the irritation he must have felt. And she felt, herself, that he must have lost respect for her... he must have thought her smarter than this, less foolhardy. She only heard him sigh, exhaling slowly, as she finished what little explanation she could give.

He must have looked at her then, seen how paralyzed with distress she was. He must have seen that she could barely speak at all, she could hardly be questioned about this. He must have been reminded about the real reason he was here, that she was crying so hard. So he took her by the arm and guided her to the tatami room. They had another 'conversation' there that was mostly silence. Hinata thought she could hear all the unspoken words, unspoken feelings, all the anger and resentment, their whole difficult relationship that just _wasn't. _Like ghosts... floating around in the same smooth, intricate coils as the smoke from the candles. Neji blew them out, one by one. All but one. He left that one for her. And then he just walked out.

Momoe came to bring her tea and dinner as Hinata retreated to her room. She couldn't remember what was said so much as Momoe's warm, confident voice.. that so many other girls she knew just _had _that easy confidence. Tenten had it. They were able to face the world with a smile and an innate sense of their own worthiness. No one could that that away from them. Momoe put the tray down and helped Hinata out of her elaborate kimono, because Hinata was just too useless to do much of anything for herself. She was just sitting at her desk, staring at the papers there. Her bank ledger book was out, open, set neatly in alignment with her pens, and the block of powdered ink she'd use to place the stamp. She stared, limply, and her eyes would blur with tears. The neat black numbers would ripple in front of her, jump as her eyes unfocused. Momoe got her up and out of her fine clothes. She set Hinata down in front of her dressing mirror and brushed her long hair out. A bit like she had when Hinata was a small child, small enough to not have had it all hacked off, because a little ninja didn't need to have long hair.

Hinata watched Momoe's nimble fingers in the mirror. Anything to avoid looking at her own face, which was almost grayish with fatigue and sorrow. Her eyes were almost like bruises, pink and swollen. Her nose too, was raw with all this endless crying. Even then, as she sat, she had a crumpled tissue in her hand.

She asked Momoe why they were doing this. Sasuke and Neji. Why? It wasn't the only problem.. it wasn't even the biggest problem she had. It wasn't even something that she couldn't guess at, either. Was she frustrated with it? Angry with them.. for acting like bickering little boys? She couldn't tell. The strange thing was that even though she knew that she was sad, she couldn't quite _feel _it. She couldn't feel anything. She was just crying.. but inside, she was still numbed right through.

"Older brothers never like their sister's boyfriends." Momoe said, lightly. She was pinning a heavy section of Hinata's hair up in a carved wooden hair ornament. This was to cheer Hinata up. It was an old ritual. Hinata would be upset, Momoe would put her hair up in fancy styles and tell her that she was a very pretty girl, and she should smile. Hinata would try to smile. She didn't think that she could do it now, but there was some comfort in this... anyway.

"And the Uchiha kid.." Momoe laughed gently. "He's _so _cute, Hinata-sama. I can see why Neji-san would worry about you being alone with him." Momoe's giggle was both conspiratorial and reassuringly normal. As if this was just a normal talk, things were essentially going to be okay.

And life would go on, her father just would not be there.

That would become normal, her father not being there. Just Hanabi, Neji and herself. A new house of Hyuga.. her distant imagining of how it could be, if the house could really be made to change. It was as slow and impervious as a glacier. It would move, but so slowly. It would crush everything and everyone under it, everything that lay in it's way, in the meantime. Change would be destructive, dangerous.. necessary. Hinata closed her eyes. Shino's words- _have the courage to accept both the change, and the dark places it leads. _She accepted it. It didn't make this hurt less, or make it seem any less impossible. There was only the sound of Momoe's polished wooden brush going through her own long hair. And their breathing, the sound of the clock. The early hours of darkness. Silence, around her now.

She heard their voices out in the hallway, Neji and Sasuke. Sharp with hostility, both of them. She looked at herself in the mirror then, and only then. She knew she'd have to do something. She couldn't just let them kill one another. It would be nice, yes, if there was someone else other than this bedraggled, red-eyed terrified girl in the mirror to run the house. But there wasn't. She had to do _something._

Momoe heard too.. and she sighed, almost cheerfully. Because to Momoe nothing was insurmountable, she was optimistic, always. She was enough to pull Hinata out of her worse depressions, sometimes... Momoe told her that this was like the housecats, like the incident with a pair of toms who just couldn't get along with one another. The cats were eventually moved to live in entirely different wings of the house. And even then, they sometimes sat on either side of the closed door, hissing at one another's shadow through the rice paper.

But Hinata did nothing. Momoe went in her place. Hinata heard her absently smacking the butt of the hairbrush into her open palm as she talked to them, as cheerfully as before. Nothing special about the words themselves- _now boys, lets not upset Hinata, this is a difficult time _and then some words to Neji, suggesting that he go into traditional Hyuga seclusion, to the traditional hours of reflection and meditation. And that maybe Sasuke would like to visit the library instead? Maybe he would like to train? And it was how Momoe spoke, the warmth and brightness in her tone that made it work. Hinata was completely incapable of this. She just didn't have that kind of bright lightness of heart in her. Ever. And now most of all.. more than ever before.

The voices faded. Neji left. Sasuke vanished too. He didn't return for several hours. Momoe went to help with the late dinner that would be served when the family returned, close to morning. And then Hinata was alone with the silence, the gas lanterns, the tick of her little antique water clock. And her thoughts.

She really had tried to explain herself to Neji. She had said many things. They were all worthless, the barest bones of an explanation. He'd said, only- _what were you thinking? _Quietly incredulous. As if he couldn't believe that she would be so stupid.

She said to him, before that: _I found him in the woods, he would have frozen to death. _And _I didn't want the hunter-nins to take him. _And _I couldn't do that to Naruto-kun and Sakura-san, they miss him so much! _And it had made sense to her, in her own heart.

But as she said the words, they seemed so small and pathetic. She sounded like a guilty little girl, even to herself, making lame excuses. _I think I.. like him. I want to.. _ She couldn't find the words for it. Could she say that she wanted to be with him? That he wanted to be with her, too? The way she felt about Sasuke now, and the way he seemed to feel about her too.. it seemed so delicate and ethereal, a whisper of feelings. Words seemed too clumsy and abrasive. They didn't quite fit. She finally just stopped talking, because she felt she was just digging herself in deeper. She was just making it seem worse and worse, as she tried to explain. She heard Neji sigh, long, almost patiently. But with irritation.

She forced herself to look at him then. But it was hard. She was ashamed of the way she looked, all red-eyed and helpless with grief. She couldn't even explain to herself how she felt, how could she explain to Neji? She looked at him, saw him looking resolutely at the painted scroll hanging on the wall, as if he wanted to look at anything other than her. There was elegant, tightly-contained anger on his face. His emotions were always so dignified, as if painted onto him by a master calligrapher. She envied him his incredible grace, his ability to keep himself so tightly and perfectly in check... as if it were just another Hyuga clan jutsu that he picked out of thin air, executed with astonishing heavenly perfection. She must have seemed so small and pathetic to him.. she always felt that way, standing beside him. She wanted to avoid his eyes. But... she always wanted, too, to get closer to him. As if.. if he accepted her, and loved her, and took her under his wing, then maybe she wouldn't really be worthless after all. She could forget every word her father had said to her, if only Neji would look at her and tell her that she was important to him, that he would help her become as strong as him. That she was strong too..

But for all the dancing around she had done in her own foggy head, she had forgotten that old grudge.. the line of succession. Only now did she remember. It was etched into his face, fine glassy lines of chakra, curved like tiny bonsai trees, flowering with his perfectly contained emotions. He had hated her because she was of the main house, and he was not. Because he was so talented- and she was not. Stunning unfairness- that he should be banished from leading the clan, _his _father should die, while she was cosseted and protected. In every word he said to her, in front of the chuunin examiners and the other genin and _everyone- _she heard _why do you deserve it? _Why? Why should she be so lucky? She was the weak one. He was the strong one. It was so clear to everyone watching, to everyone in the family. She bowed her head. She couldn't argue with him. He was so _right _to be furious with her. She knew that.

She had put this out of her mind. She wanted it too, secretly.. she wanted to be given the right to be heiress and lead the clan, after her father. She knew it was wrong.. maybe Neji hated her for that, too. He must know, he could see _right through her. _She couldn't hide anything from him. And now she thought.. he must have begun to believe that her father would choose him, after all. That her father would break the rules, because he had already broken the rules about the clan head teaching a son of the branch house. Even if her father had never said so... how could Neji not have started to hope? So.. she knew that he had every right to be angry. But she just wished... anyway. She wished she could ask him how he was feeling, to tell her. She looked at him and wished she could say _something, _that she could make him look at her. That she could make this all right for him, somehow.

But what could she say? _Please let me know you? Please tell me what you're feeling? _

Please forgive me, and love me anyway?

She couldn't say any of that. She was terrified that he would look at her with contempt. The clan head, begging a member of the branch house for a bit of affection! If he looked at her with disgust, she thought her blood would freeze over, instantly. She couldn't bear his scorn. Not now, not ever.

He never let her know him.. he never shared his feelings with her. He never.. ever.. let her get close. She only knew so little, the few words they exchanged in the hallways, or when her father trained them both. A few polite words at meals. A few words- like they were barely even acquaintances. And they were, weren't they? She barely knew him!

There had been one night, about two years ago, when she had accidentally stumbled upon him and Tenten in the darkened garden. She was coming back from training, and she heard their soft voices ahead of her. She caught a glimpse of them through the flowering trees. It had been springtime, and the cherry blossoms had hung in heavy scented clumps of flowers, ghostly white in the torchlight. Neji had been holding Tenten in his arms, kissing her so gently that Hinata's heart dropped into her stomach, she had never seen him that way before. Her cheeks instantly burned, she felt that she had seen something that was not for her to see, that she had intruded. Her aloof cousin, caught in a private moment of deep affection... She had slipped away, neither of them had heard her. It was for the best. Neji would have been angry. Wouldn't he? She was certain he would be. She couldn't help but feel guilty, that she had done something wrong.

But that Neji, the Neji under the cherry trees, talking softly to his girlfriend... that was not the Neji that she would ever know. She knew that. But she ached with loneliness anyway. It made her feel alone in the world. Or worse- unable to ever really be part of it. As if she would be left out of everything. Just the way she was left out of Neji's life. She could catch a few glimpses- guiltily. And then she would have to sneak away, hurriedly, so Neji wouldn't catch her.

And now Neji was somewhere else. She was alone. They were not together. Her father's death changed nothing, brought them no closer at all.

The night wore on towards morning. There were reports that came in, now and then, on the soft feet of servants. The family's traveling party would arrive by daybreak. When the first of these messages had come, Hinata glanced at Neji out of the corner of her eye, saw the little sarcastic twist of his lip that said _I doubt that. _Neji had very little faith in the family's word... on anything.

Hinata had thought that maybe he had begun to trust them more, but now that she watched him, and thought about it, she could find no evidence of this. Or any reason, for that matter. She got up out of bed. Sasuke was still gone, off in the library, Momoe said. Hinata asked where Neji was. And Momoe showed her. Momoe took her to the far end of the house, where Neji had gone to think.

She sat down with him, and he let her.

They were waiting for Hanabi. They were in the screened porch on the south side of the building. The wooden screens were all pulled closed and latched tightly. Snow was still packed, visibly, between the angled slats. But it was frozen solid, and the space heaters brought the temperature up to a comfortable level. Hinata though that it was a bit like winter survival training at the academy, where the children used jutsus to form powdery snow into wet blocks, and built temporary shelters out of them. Inside, the thick snow walls would admit a dampened strain of light, but very little sound. It was a bit like being underwater, closed in. Safely hidden away, in silence... She had gone to find Neji, because she needed to speak to him. The need was so overwhelming that it drove her out of her snugly warm bedroom and through the house.

Neji was out on the porch, sitting very still. This was a remote part of the house, all but closed down at this time of year, when neither the summer gardens or spring cherry blossoms were out, and all the porch faced was bare trees and desultorily sculpted bare bonsai. It was a summer garden. Hinata thought that Neji must have been meditating, but as she padded up behind him, she saw he was merely staring at the wall.

It was a strange thing for him to do. He was reserved. But she couldn't help but sense, with nothing more than a wispy hint of intuition, a kind of hollowness in him now. Just in his gestures, his body language that was both hard, and slowed, somehow. She thought.. he must have been mourning. His way. She didn't want to disturb him, but he'd heard her.

"Hinata-sama." he said. What he meant was _I know you're there. I heard you. _So Hinata came in, and chose a place to sit beside him on the floor. A place where she would be close enough that it wouldn't seem that she was trying to _not _sit beside him, but far enough that she wasn't really _beside _him, either.

Once there, she thought that maybe all she really needed was to just be around him. Silence could be enough.

"He betrayed the village." Neji said. She heard him draw breath in the silence, but his words still were unexpected. She had grown used to the silence.

"He was very young." she said, after she had composed her own thoughts. "And his family was all killed. We left him all alone."

That word seemed to hang in the air. _Alone. _All alone.

"The family did." she said. She was staring down at her fingers in her lap, watching her fingers weave together while being somehow disconnected from doing it. "We did." she said, again, softly.

Neji didn't reply. She should have looked at him, tried to guess what he was thinking. But she found herself caught in her own tangle of thoughts for a moment. The reason. The reason why Sasuke wasn't _really _a criminal. The reason she used to justify it to herself, and it made sense- to her. But she had a quiver of intruding worry, that second, that it wouldn't make sense to Neji. It would sound...

...like she did. When he said "I suppose you're going to tell me that you love him."

Nothing she could say in response could ever sound like anything other than a naive, stupid little girl. She lead with her heart. Her heart meant nothing to Neji. He must, she thought.. think her such a weak and useless clan head. She could see that so clearly. She was saying:

"I trust him."

And Neji was sighing, an slow explosion of held breath. "Of course you do."

And then silence, until Neji said "Because he's nice to you. Am I right?"

He still did not look at her.

"He would be nice to you, do or say _anything, _Hinata-sama.." Neji said, wearily. "He would say anything to convince you to..."

Neji did look at her then, a sidelong glance. His eyes were as hard as clear crystals. She saw them perfectly, the little white flash of his glance, in her own peripheral vision. He was looking to see if he had to go on. And he didn't. But he said, anyway:

"He only wants one thing, Hinata."

The dropped honorific was significant.

"You believed what he said, didn't you?"

And then, a moment later, as Neji slowly pulled himself to his feet, all fluid lean muscle, he said, distantly "Your father told me to protect you." It hung in the air, one crystalline sentence, as he walked softly away, and his footfalls whispered to nothing. _Protect you. _He probably still hated her.

And maybe he had a right to. He should have been the heir. He should have been the firstborn. He should have been in her place now, it _should have been his. _But she wanted it. She wanted to change the house, to change herself, her father was gone but she still had _this. _He wanted it too, and it should have been his.. but she just wouldn't give it up for him.

And maybe he was right. _He wants one thing. _Because that's all any boy would ever want from her, according to the words, the wisdom, the _way the world was, _the things Neji didn't have to say. That boys would just use her, if they bothered with her at all. She was a little shrinking Hyuga mouse. Barely worth noticing. Neji made it sound... so right, so real. Like that's all she was. He didn't even have to _say _it.

But... alone in the snowy silence, the faint half-light of the heaters, Hinata thought that he wasn't entirely right. She _had _considered that Sasuke might simply want her for, well, _one thing. _She had decided...

...she closed her eyes and breathed very slowly, calming herself...

...that she believed that he was sincere, but she would take the chance. If it turned out that he had simply used her- she would accept that she had made that choice.

And she marked that line of reasoning with her own slow, controlled breaths.

She didn't tell Neji. She couldn't tell Neji. His vision of her as a naive girl too lonely to care if she was used or not was just so complete and compelling. Even though she knew it was not, it still seemed like it was the ultimate truth. His vision was just so complete and perfectly realized. She couldn't argue with him. She could only listen.

But she had decided. She had made her decision, all the same.

-----

So it turned out that there would be no fighting with Neji today. Neji-fucking-_niisan... _Sasuke just turned his back on the bastard and let himself be pushed in another direction by one of those ninja girls. She unlocked the library for him. Fine, he'd spend his time reading about history and Hyuga family jutsus rather than breaking Neji's arrogant smirking face. Fine with him.

Hinata was resting. He gave her time alone to rest. She needed it. _He'd _needed it, a bit of solitude. He'd had altogether too much solitude in his own time, but it was still necessary. She needed to find her own center again, in all the horrible feelings she'd be going through right now. He couldn't take that pain for her. Not entirely. It would have to be endured. There was only so much he could do.. and right now, he _had _to leave her alone to think.

And _he _had to think about how he'd keep his promises to her. How he could actually _be in love _with someone, since that was where all this was heading. He should be happy about that- and he was.. sort of. But love was new, it was fucking _terrifying, _it would upset everything that he'd put in place to make his fucked-up life work at all. He wanted a change, he wanted _out _of this cage of hatred... but that didn't make it easy. That didn't make it something that he could just do, or even try to do, without having to plan and worry. So he took this time to think.

It was silent in the library. There was dust on every surface, as if it wasn't used as much as it once had been. It smelled of leather and old paper, and traces of chemical inks that would be invisible until exposed to certain kinds of light. There were many secrets here. There was the entire complete paper trail of a gigantic dynasty of ninjas here, in fact. There were probably things in here that he would not be allowed to look at. But here he was. No one was snatching the books out of his hands. So he took his time, and found some jutsu books. He went to sit down at the far end, in the deepest shadows of the windowless room, behind thick stacks of books. He set up his candles there and let the silence surround him. It was early morning, and this whole wing of the vast wooden house was empty and cold and full of different heavy silences. The absence of noise, of life. Sasuke liked it, it gave him space in his own crowded head to think. Sound magic could create emotion, mood.. it could give him an illusion of serenity.

And he had to think. He had to think about fucking _feelings, _which he'd just spent six years trying to not think of at all. He had to think of love, which was distained by Itachi and spat on by Otokagure. He'd tried his best to make that crap work for him, and it just _wasn't _going to do it. So he had to change. He had to give himself up to love and feeling and let it all hurt him, let that kind of pain be possible again. He had to let go of this empty stupid idea of what strength was. If he wanted to grow up, get better, move on.. he had to. He _had _to. Knowing that he had to do it wasn't making _doing it _any easier.

But fucking _Itachi _and fucking _Orochimaru _were wrong. To say that love existed was like saying that the sky was blue- so obvious that it wasn't worth saying at all. Sasuke just got tired of the bullshit, not love itself but the sentimental crap about it, all the singing and poetry and moping and... it wasn't magical and he wished people would stop making such a big deal out of it. It was like they were trying to make it into something huge and difficult and unattainable, trying to make it into something it wasn't, as if it would make him somehow weak by association. And all of that just gave him a headache, when love itself was as natural as breathing. As natural as hate, really.

But one thing was for sure. When you fell- and he was falling fucking _hard _and he knew it- you suddenly didn't want to throw your life away anymore. You just wanted to lie around with that other person, watch the stars, kiss them for hours, that sort of thing. Love was indeed fucking _fatal _to his plans to kill Itachi. He still had to do it, he couldn't chance having any kind of wife or children without Itachi wiped off the face of the earth. But it was still sapping his reserves of hate. It was hard to get up that same thermonuclear blast of rage to drive him forward, beyond all reason, to hunt Itachi down and kill him.

And maybe that's what he needed. He _needed _that rage, to push him. To make up for the talent that Itachi had, and he just _didn't. _

Hate was like love, then. It was rage energy. It could make up for gaps inside him, parts that would never be filled. Love was like hate, maybe.. it could fix him. It could stitch him back together. He could become, if not a real normal person, never ordinary or even okay again- the appearance of one. She did make him feel a bit better. Even if he'd have to do it, have to rid the world of Uchiha Itachi once and for all, silence the screaming ghosts in his head. Hate was like love, after all... it demanded a consummation.

But... He had no idea how to do any of this, so he'd have to ask someone- _someone- _for advice. If his father had been alive... no, even _if _his father had been alive, Sasuke couldn't picture his father sitting him down for a chat about this. His father would have had work to do. Or he would have been tired from work. He would not want to be bothered. He would be upset over Itachi.. _if, _that is, the family had lived. Itachi would have done something, he would have continued his strange rebellion. And to ask _Itachi _for advice... The idea was beyond absurd. Even though Itachi had never really given the impression that he had no feelings, that he didn't understand love or friendship. He'd never said it outright. And he had- allegedly- friends. And- allegedly- a good close relationship with his father. Sasuke thought of his own father, more and more, as _Itachi's father. _Because that's how it would look to an outsider. Did his father ever spend any time with his second child? No. And anyway, to ask Itachi for advice about girls would just be... embarrassing. Sasuke would feel weak for asking. Like it was a bad thing, to want to do this at all, to want anything other than endless training. He would feel like he was showing a lack of devotion to his ninjutsu.

But they were both gone, so they were lost causes. Who was left? Kakashi. Kakashi who had a sexual relationship with his right hand, and not much beyond that. Sasuke actually had the uncomfortable feeling that Kakashi might laugh at him. Not outwardly, of course.. that wasn't how Kakashi did things. But Kakashi would smile condescendingly behind his mask. He might not even mean it to be condescending. But it would be. It would be for certain. And Orochimaru...

Well, _fucking Orochimaru _probably would have enjoyed the novelty of putting his arm around Sasuke's shoulders and putting on an act of extravagant grandfatherly advice. Some of what he said might have actually been useful, Orochimaru liked to blend lies and truth until both faded together. Orochimaru loved masks, he loved pretend to be someone else, almost all-out _becoming _someone else, just as a momentary lark. Because he was bored.. why not become Sasuke's father for a moment? Do what Sasuke's father would have never, ever done, but Sasuke wanted so badly. Orochimaru had done that a few times. Pulled on his fatherly mask.. and the illusion was so complete. It was so tempting. Sasuke knew it was a lie, but it just didn't matter.

And when Orochimaru tired of it, and broke the strange spell of the moment, Sasuke remembered a heavy pang of loss. Feeling as if... Well. It _was _a lie anyway. Orochimaru just did it to show him how weak he was. He never learned the damned lesson well enough. He never killed his feelings and ethics well enough. He just couldn't summon the hatred. Even now, knowing that it would have been the wrong path anyway, he felt that he failed. If he was going to become a killer and nothing else, he should have done it perfectly.

There was no tolerance of anything less than perfection, after all. And that _was _his father's rule.

He couldn't do it. He _had _failed. He found himself remembering a dull afternoon in his first summer in Otokagure. Orochimaru told him to come and help with a dissection. And Sasuke didn't much care or worry, it would just be a cadaver. Or a dead animal. But it was, in fact, a little girl. A little village girl, terrified and shaking. Orochimaru had strapped her to the table. Sasuke heard her terrified whimpers and tears as he came down the stone steps, into Orochimaru's basement labs where he carried out his medical experiments. Orochimaru had been calmly setting out scalpels as Sasuke came into the room. The little girl had turned wet, glistening eyes on him. Orochimaru had just handed him a heavy, full syringe, told him to inject the girl in her voice box. Later he found out it was full of drain cleaner. Orochimaru did it so the little girl couldn't scream.

But she was in terrible pain as the dissection went on, and Sasuke just couldn't take it. Orochimaru asked him mockingly- was any different from the pain inflicted in battle? He put down his bloodied scalpel and grabbed Sasuke's wrist, seized control of his nerves enough to spark chidori in his hand, then force that hand into his throat. And it did hurt. The only screams in that room were his own.

So. He failed. He failed that lesson. Orochimaru shoved his numb body out the heavy door, smirking. _Seems Itachi-kun was right. How disappointing. _His legs had been weak from the electrical shock. He couldn't run. But he sure as hell would have, if he could. He'd been almost fourteen. He fucking _failed, _he'd just wanted to run the hell away.

_Run away... run away.. _And live with the shame? Well- yes! He'd done that just fine. He'd managed shame and hatred _just fine. _But still.. somehow.. not enough. Not enough to do it fully. Because here he was, back in Konoha. _Staying _in Konoha. Running from Orochimaru this time...

Orochimaru.. who took his hand and molded it into the forbidden seals. Who owned whole parts of him now. There were snakes stuffed into every crevice in his memories. Orochimaru had told him, over and over, that the best thing in the world was destruction. _To take something beautiful and full of potential, Sasuke-kun.. _Orochimaru's painted fingernails shiny in the candlelight of the mausoleum, _-and destroy it. _As if the dissected little girl- her organs and intestines all torn out and her small body finally still on the bloody table- was Orochimaru's masterwork. As if that was Orochimaru's entire philosophy of life. Hurting others, exploiting others, taking from others- being strong so you could do the hurting and taking instead of having it done to you. Sasuke was so _fucking sick of it, _but he couldn't sustain the hope of anything better. Not without constant _constant _infusions of sunlight and warmth and Hinata's soft words. Like he was dependent on her now. Like this _love bullshit _was the only thing that could save him.

Well- he didn't believe in that. _Yes, _love existed. Love couldn't save him when he was fucking thirteen. Love probably couldn't save him now. Love could maybe make him feel a bit better. But he'd still be just the same filthy fuck-up inferior son that he'd always been, he'd just be in love too.

And he was. He was falling. Or getting to be in love, whatever. If he didn't want to accept that he _fell, _then he'd say that he _decided. _Fine- he'd decided that love was something he'd allow. He'd do it. It was better than nothing!

It was better than _this. _Anything was better than this. He closed the books, blew out the candles. He took a few back with him. He went to find Hinata. To start trying.

----

With no classes to teach, with no real expectation of keeping up with her training, with no contact with her fellow teachers or her friends or anyone... with almost no one home yet, the entire rhythm of life of the house disrupted, Hinata felt lost. She had no direction, no motivation to do anything. Neji had been informed. Hanabi would have to be informed. Then the family would return, and Sasuke would have to be protected.

So for now, Hinata hid in her room. She heard Hanabi's cat scratching at the door, and it's plaintive meows. She didn't even want to rise to let the poor thing in. She let her lanterns burn out, one by one. She'd have to light candles to get them refilled with oil, and re-lit. Eventually Sasuke came back, she felt his chakra and the soft sound of his feet on the floors. He was healed now. He was almost silent. He could have concealed himself fully. But he let himself be known to her. She lifted her head when he slipped into her dark room.

"I'm awake." she whispered, into the darkness and silence. Outside, the string of paper lanterns sparkled on the snow, and sent little crystal shivers of light into the room. There were faint, icy patterns on the walls from the way the light was sliced in it's long angled fall through the frost on her windows. It moved over Sasuke, the pale colors of his shirt and pants, his white feet and hands, his pale face, as he moved with his intense, focused grace. She watched him re-light the lanterns. She watched the golden light frame the elegant planes of his face. She wanted him to come closer... she wanted him to just come to bed with her.

She was not the kind of person, she'd thought, that this happened to. This was for other girls, ones who were beautiful and confident. She'd spent so much time imagining Naruto- who she could not have, not just because he loved Sakura. Not just because her family would never allow it- and her family would _never _allow it. To want him just because she _couldn't have him? _Because somehow she'd become so used to the idea that she would have nothing? _Because she was nothing. _Not good enough for her father, so not good enough for anyone. For anything. No- she had loved him because he burned right through all of that. He was wild and free. He made her start to dream. That made him dangerous. That made him so alluring...

She could have never imagined something like this. Sasuke was so different. She'd barely noticed him at all, she'd seen his shadow, silently passing as Naruto and Sakura walked in the sun, and he was with them, but somehow never really _there. _Not the way he was now. Not the way he made himself known to her, now, the way he suddenly, finally, seemed to have allowed himself to become real, or alive. No longer just a ghost. He had alluded to that, in the space of a few words- _there are ghosts, Hinata- _that she should watch out.

...maybe he hadn't quite meant it that way. But it was one thing to just have a beating heart and a body that breathed and lived in the most basic, biological way. It was another to embrace life, allow yourself to live- to be _alive._

Was it because Neji was there, now, the servants were congregating- there was suddenly danger of discovery? Maybe that's where this desire was coming from- the threat of destruction. If Neji saw, if Neji found out.. _Neji already knew, _he'd said so. And.. she'd told him. _I trust him, _she'd said that. She hadn't had to say anything else, Neji put all the pieces together immediately- and he understood almost too well. Neji could have seen the change in chakra, in body heat, the flush on her face, all of that would tell the sordid story for her. Her father would have know too. _Her father would have been furious. _Sasuke had muttered under his breath about her father, her father as a danger. Her father may well have just taken Sasuke out into the yard, pulled the chakra in his hand to a fine point- brushed Sasuke's forehead with one finger and burnt out every synapse in his brain with the briefest touch. Everything that made him real and present and unique _and irreplaceable _and alive- gone. A little whisper of smoke over his unbroken skin. There were ways to kill so precisely with the gentle fist. There were ways to burn out whole internal organs, whole nerve networks, while barely stirring a hair on the head. It would be so gentle- Hinata had seen it done. She could _see it, _her father's hand passing over Sasuke's forehead, a falling shadow, and then Sasuke's eyes would just close, he would almost sigh. And then- he'd be gone. Killed instantly. You didn't need the caged bird seal to do it.

And that was so morbid. What was _wrong with her? _To even think that.. to even _remember _that... maybe it was the flash of the seal on Neji's forehead, when he'd been lifting the forehead protector back into place. Maybe that reminded her. There were dangers. Her family was _not mocked, _it's rules were not flouted. If Neji.. if perfect, talented, genius Neji was not pure enough to be free, what would her family do to Sasuke?

And- could she stop them? Could she protect him? _She would have to protect him. _

_I'll take care of you. _he said. She owed him security and safety and a home to come back to again- that was the debt of her family. She was the heir. She would have to do it, she would just find a way.

It was morbid to feel this way in his arms, warm and safe and breathless with it- and to be thinking of death.

But death was interwoven with everything they'd done and said together. That letter.. and her fears for his life had brought him into the house. It was death now, the death of her father piercing her heart that somehow... strangely.. wrongly.. made the desire shaper, more immediate. As if suddenly she was aware of limits, of there just not always being another day, another year in which she could maybe have a life, a dream, a bit of love for herself. The academy and Kurenai-sensei and every mission talked of sudden death, but to Hinata it was just words, how many Hyuga died on the battlefield? They thought it was for lesser ninjas- _they _were all but immortal. They were just so perfect. Her father was still dead- dead of his own heart, his own heart just _stopping- _and then it was all over. It could all be over at any minute. It made the minutes, the seconds, the hours- sharper, brighter. It made her want to throw herself into Sasuke's arms, even if she felt silly- she knew he wouldn't push her away or sneer at her. He wouldn't hold her at arm's length or just carry on his entire life with other people- other people who were just always so much better than she was. He wouldn't make her wait any longer. Maybe it made sense... Her father was dead. There was nothing now, between her and death. Both of her parents were gone. Maybe it was just so natural, that now she would want so badly to _live._

She watched him, and she didn't have to say anything. She just watched- and he came to her. He lifted her from the sheets, swung her up into his arms. She was half-dressed, just her mesh shirt, some clean panties. He carried her, and she was fainting, really, falling off her feet, as he put his arms around her and pressed her to the warm fabric- soft and picking up his body heat. He'd taken off Neji's heavy woven cotton shirt, and now there was just the thin linen undershirt over his sleekly muscled body, just thin fabric again. Like time was bending back, and now it was night, but he was so close again. Like falling into a dream.

She just wanted to close her eyes and bask in the feeling, just for a second. And that second could go on all night. All she wanted, now, was to shut the door on the world. If the house were still empty, if the family were still gone, if she could take him to the higher west wing of the house, where there was a heavy oak door with batteries of iron locks, she could ask Sasuke and he would lock it against all intruders. The door could be sealed with paper tags. And beyond it, there were many guest rooms, she could take him to bed again. They could just be with one another, she could just fall into his arms, and just melt together. Even the grief made her want to, just flee into the easy, heated feeling of this desire. Who cared if it was right, or noble, or even what she should do... who cared about all these responsibilities..

Of course she wouldn't do this, but.. she wanted to just think about it, dream about it. For just a minute.

She wanted to take him to her bed, under the quilt and sheets there could be no embarrassment, no reminders of being so naked and imaging that somehow Neji could see, that the servants could see. But Sasuke had her sleeve, and he pulled her gently into his lap. She was just plunging her hands so slowly under the hem of his pants, feeling his warm skin and the hard muscle in his stomach, the tiny shivers that seemed to run through him. So strange, when he seemed so steady and solid and invulnerable, to be reminded that he was warm and flesh and blood- and alive. He let her touch him. He guided her hands.. but she didn't need guidance. She knew this.. how this worked. She knew how to touch him.. how to hold him, as he just got warmer and harder in her hands.

All his chakra focusing and gathering... his hands were under her shirt, and he'd pulled her panties off, they were lying on the floor somewhere behind her now. His fingers were slipping inside of her. She caught her breath- but she held still, and she balanced with her legs around his waist, so he could lift her shirt and see.. so he could do this, unobstructed. He'd touched her, but he'd never done this, one finger.. two. She knew this, she'd never been trained to be on the recieving end, to enjoy it.. but he body knew and was ready.

He watched her. Steady, his eyes locked on her, concerned. Watching to see if he was hurting her or not. She shook her head, she couldn't speak now, even with so little, just two of his fingers in place. But he'd never been inside her before, no one ever had been. So it was something.. she had to stop, try to breathe. _Feel _it. She was full of nervous anticipation and glee and ever fear that had a little pleasurable edge to it. She had never done this before. She rubbed him in her hands, slowly, finding a rhythm that he seemed to like. She balanced in his lap and her legs quivered, she rubbed him gently against her so he could just feel the wetness, just the at the tip, just enough so they could both feel one another.

His eyes changed. Softened. His lips parted and he watched her, breathing hard now. His hands cupped her shoulder blades under her shirt, his fingers were pressed into her skin. She moved him against her, then just a bit inside her, stroking him up and down her wet lips. Her hand was somehow so steady even as neither of them could breathe properly, or meet one another's eyes any longer... _or want to stop. _To just go on with this slight, teasing bit of contact.. so slight, his skin was so smooth right there, right where there was a tiny slit. She'd traced it when the tip of her tongue, and he'd tensed so hard under her fingers, like every muscle in his body pulled tight. She could imagine what he'd feel like inside her, if she just moved a bit, and he arced his back into the thrust- and she could feel the tension coiling in his muscles, he was halting right on the verge of doing it. It was just a twinge of movement away...

But anticipation was the best feeling.. she almost didn't want to make it stop.. ever. The whole house and the whole world around it melted away. There was nothing but his warm hands, his smooth skin, their staggered breathing, harsh and somehow beautiful, against the deep silence of this upper wing of her house.

"...more?" she whispered, finally.

He just exhaled hard, shaking.

"Now.." she gasped into the air, her head pressed back against the gather of her jacket hood.

"-you decide..!" his whisper was so sudden and yet- it wasn't harsh. She pulled herself up straight again and he wasn't scary or intimidating or better than her or out of her reach, he was just another person, another ninja, just like her. Someone so strangely, magically alike to her. She didn't have to be frightened. She just had to gather air into her lungs and then inch herself forward, so she was just starting to part around him, then he was a bit inside.. and then a long, slow, achingly deep slide... And it was done.

He held her at the waist and together they kept it steady. Until she was pressed right up against him. She was having to fight so hard to breathe, and it just felt _so good, _the struggle of it sent little shivers up and down her chest and it did hurt a bit, but he wet his fingers in her fluids and stroked her where she showed him, slow and firm. Her insides quivered and clenched. He thrust up against her, slow like a gathering wave. She was whispering "...now.. now.. _now.." _even though she was the one who would decide when to move. Like she was telling herself. He held her to steady her- but she was strong enough. Her leg muscles could move cleanly, over him, then back.. almost a rocking motion. She just slipped.. back and forth on him. He braced his hand so he could keep touching her, never missing a beat. There was no sound in the world than their breathing. There was nothing other than the deep piercing feeling of him inside, making her feel deep parts of her body that never got touched, otherwise, that never had any reason to feel. She just had to move faster.. and _faster _There was nothing but _this. _

On to the end, a long, slow, sweet slide, her muscles clenching around him so hard that it almost hurt, but it was so _good _and perfect, it was just what she suddenly needed to feel. She caught the exact moment as he squeezed his eyes shut and tension flashed though him- and then wetness, hot with his deep body heat. Then his long, shaky last breath, as he relaxed. And her own, as she let herself fall down.. down, into his arms, her insides aching just a bit now, numb and tingling. She could barely feel anything but that, but she tried to keep steady. She tensed her muscles around him, so she could still hold him tightly within her. It wasn't real peace.. it wasn't any kind of solution. But it made her _forget, _and she didn't want to leave that feeling. She didn't want to let it go.

The minutes passed. She listened to Sasuke's heart as it slowed, and his breathing. And then, his soft half-whisper as he told her that he wasn't ever sure, in this moment, whether he believed in anything, if that was just animalistic. If it was just for animals and animal bodies.

But there was a hard squeeze on her heart, too, at that long, hard moment. She knew it. She was sure of it. She whispered in his ear _no. Not just that. _And he nodded slowly. He said he could believe for just a second.. having just seen it, felt it for himself. _This time, _he said. Not any other time.

"But we're not in love yet." he said, almost grimly.

"Getting there.." he mumbled, pressing his lips into her throat, his hair sliding over her chin and the underside of her jaw. He seemed embarrassed. But she felt that way herself, embarrassed to say things, to tell him that she even liked him. When she did love him, how would she be able to say it?

"I hope this is easier when we are." she said. And she didn't have to explain what she meant. They were similar enough, to share feelings like this, they didn't have to struggle to explain, and _that _was so much freedom just by itself. She let out a long breath of air, relaxing. She didn't have to explain herself... for once. She didn't have to try to make it all sound like it was worth saying.

"It will be." he said, exhaling. It was almost a sigh, like he was contented. She rested her cheek against his forehead and brushed her fingertips against the strange spiky ends of his hair. He was both so safe and warm- and so wild and exotic. Looking at him, she should have been terrified. She should have been so intimidated. She just _wasn't, _and she never had been. Not really... not when he stopped being a dangerous stranger others had told her about, and started being someone she actually knew for herself.

Outside the paper lanterns burned. Morning was coming. Her little clock said it was almost six am. If this were a normal day, she'd be already up. She'd be done her morning training. But nothing was the same, now. She could just rest. She _had _to rest. Sasuke said to her, whispering _relax.. relax.. _His whisper rippled over her ear, slow waves. The minutes were long, endless. She said "I didn't think you'd believe in love." She was just speaking her thoughts, almost to herself. "Not when I first met you."

She closed her eyes, inhaled the slight tinge of scent, soap and a kind of warmth under it, a hint of sweat now, from both of them. "I didn't think you'd even want it."

"Why?" he said, whispering.

"Because..." she was still holding him inside her, he was still tight and warm, filling her up perfectly. She paused to feel that, focus on it for the space of one breath, then continued. "...I thought you wouldn't need it. You'd just be..." she sighed, his hair fluttered a bit under her lips. "...so strong, you wouldn't need anyone."

He thought that over in silence, and the silence was so deep and full that the steady, tiny ticking of her bedside clock traveled through it like sound under smooth waters.

"Of course I believe in it." he said, gruffly.

"Why?" she whispered.

"Because." he said. And they were echoing each others words, perfect harmony, it seemed so natural that she caught her breath, scared to shatter the illusion... and there was a little contented flicker of a chuckle in his tone. "Because. Look out the window...there." he pointed. "What do you see?"

There were little winter birds in the bare branches of the trees in her little hidden garden. Sleeping now, the sunrise was still hours off. The lantern light just brushed against the puffed feathers. Only their feathery shadows and that soft smudging of light gave them away at all. She used her byakugan, saw their tiny eyes shut tightly, their little heads turned over under their wings.

"Sparrows." she said. The sound of his slight intake of breath was as soft as those little downy feathers looked, his lips brushed against her cheek.

"Do you believe in them?" he said.

And when she frowned, he lifted his head so he was eye to eye with her and saw her consternation- "It's a silly question. Of course you believe in them. But why do you believe in them?"

"Believe in them..?" she whispered.

"Why do you believe they exist." he said, steadily. "You're asking me why I believe love exists."

"Well.." she breathed slowly, and tucked herself against his chest, under his chin. His hands came up gently and gathered it, set it neatly over her shoulder, so it wouldn't get pinned. "Because they're right there. I see them."

"That's why." his voice was a warm ripple, pleasant and comforting against the skin of her cheek. "Because it's just there. I've seen it."

As she was silent, he shrugged his uninjured shoulder, shifting her to his other arm slightly. "There's nothing that special about it." Gruffly, almost defensively. "It's just _there." _But she could feel the same embarrassment so keenly, she could feel how hard it was to say this.

"That's..." she sighed. She almost wanted to thank him for trying to push the words out, say it anyway. Talk about this- as hard as it was. "I... I'm so.." she hunched her shoulders. "...um.. glad. I'm happy. But.. I wish it were more romantic." She hoped he didn't think she was complaining. "I'm _glad_." she said again, and looked up at him. But he understood. She slowly relaxed her shoulders, and her hands twisted the the loose fabric of his shirt.

She meant- _that's so normal. _So unremarkable. So.. unmagical, like love was just ordinary, not worth noticing much. It was probably, she thought, the only way people like him- _practical people, sensible people, people who were strong- _could accept something as soft and, really, useless as love. Did love make you a better ninja? Did it make you strike unerringly? Did it hone your body and mind to a killing point? No.. the opposite really. So it made sense. And she was happy. She whispered that to him again. She _was. _This wasn't a fairy tale or a storybook romance where things just turned out right. She knew that. She.. accepted it.

_I'm not a princess. _she said to him. _This is not a fairy tale. _There would be no prince, no castle, no magic, no perfect solution. There would be change, slow and steady, chiseled out by effort and determination. She said to him "I know that now. I'm not a princess. There's no prince.."

And he laughed. He barely ever laughed, freely like that. It was such a small sound, but so warm. It lit parts of her up, little glows in her snipped-out heart. "You're right about that." he said, gently amused, it seemed. "I'm no prince." _And you, _he said, _you're no princess. You're a queen, Hinata. You're the savior of this whole fucked up house._

She squirmed a bit, hearing him curse, say a bad word like _fuck _.. he saw that. He sighed. She saw him start to find the words to apologize. "No." she said. She shook her head. "It's okay..." It was. It was just _so much, _to much to hear at once. Praise was blazingly unfamiliar. It was too much bright light. She hid her face in his shoulder, and he sighed, but it was a contented sigh. He stroked her hair, as he'd done many times before. They'd known each other for only a few days, and already this was becoming familiar.

"It'll be all right, Hinata.." he said. And she believed him. He _made it all right. _

"I'm not a romantic person." he said a bit later, very matter of fact. And almost very seriously. If her eyes were open, she imagined she would see him furrow his brow just a bit, the way she had seen him do so several times before.

"I know you are." he said, and his voice was lightened into a whisper, almost as if he was a bit intrigued by that. As if it were just interesting, not silly or stupid of her...

"Whatever you need..." he muttered, embarrassed again, suddenly, his skin heating up with a bit of a flush under her. "...I'll learn how to do it."

He was trying _so hard, _he was making all this effort, just to say these things to her, to get them out- somehow. She could feel the sheer effort of it in every word. She had to say something back, she fumbled for the words. She ended up just blurting, in a nervous whisper "I... I wish I could say things like that to you too." And she was blushing hard, she felt her cheeks burning.

Sasuke shifted her in his arms and stroked her hair back from the side of her face. He frowned slightly. "Just say it." he said.

She closed her eyes. "I think I'm.. I mean, I think I could fall in love with you." In a rush.

And it was the _wrong thing to say. _It was stupid of her, somehow. Somehow it was wrong. It was too much too soon, and she clenched her shoulder blades together with embarrassment. She hid her face under his chin, and felt it when he drew breath. "I'm sorry." she whispered, shuddering. "I'm... I-"

"Hinata." he said, stopping her.

His voice was warm, that half-whisper, but it was the light touch to her cheek, his callused fingers, that stopped her short. And uncertainty crept into his voice a moment later, he shifted uncomfortably under her. "You don't even have to say that." he muttered, tensing.

She found herself clenching his shoulder, her fingers turning his pale skin white with pressure, and hastily relaxed her hand. "I'm sorry." she whispered. "I'm sorry."

He sighed. "Damn it.. don't be sorry, Hinata..." She felt him raise his hand to gather her hair away from her shoulder. "I just mean.." He was doing it again, trying. Trying to _say _things. "I just mean that I feel the same way." he muttered, suddenly just as nervous as she was. Just as embarrassed. She could feel it. She was too close to him to miss it, the quivers in his heart, his throat, the way he twitched with discomfort, even _saying _this.

"I wanted to try." she whispered, curling herself into the hollow of his neck, the loose fabric of his shirt, as if she could just hide her face, hide in his arms.

And before she felt the silence, or felt the space where he should say it, he said- "I know I could." Like it was a fact. Just a fact. He raised one hand past her eyes and rubbed at his forehead, tensely. "..fall in love with you." he muttered, finally. He couldn't defeat his embarrassment, she felt him shift uncomfortably a bit as he said it. She felt the awkwardness in his voice and body. She felt the same twitch, the same worry.. the same unwillingness to let go of the moment. But that just didn't make it any less excruciating.

"I.." she had to say something. She buried her face in his heavy, sleek hair, her lips found the curve of his ear. "...I hope this gets easier."

He sighed, and she felt tension and nervousness, little glimmers of something other then his constant steely confidence. To think that he was uncertain too, that he felt the way she did. He said, with quiet resignation. "...it couldn't get any harder."

It really couldn't. But they had both done it. They had both gotten through that moment, hard as it was. Maybe... maybe that meant it could be done.

-----

It wasn't the sex.

Hinata asked him. Her asshole cousin was telling her things. Telling her that Sasuke just wanted her for sex- as if Neji-fucking-_niisan _knew the first thing about Sasuke or could tell his ass from a hole in the ground, at that.

But Neji-_niisan _could shut the fuck up. He wasn't right- not that he was _ever _right, as far as Sasuke could tell. It wasn't the sex. It wasn't _just _the sex. He wasn't here to use Hinata and throw her away, Neji could shut his stupid mouth and mind his own business.

Sasuke knew. It sure as hell didn't make it any easier, but he _knew _he was falling in love. It wasn't as if he was somehow _unaware, _or still an idiot twelve year old too angry to even want to understand. He'd been there, in Hinata's arms. He'd felt it. He _knew._

Alone with her, enclosed in her warm arms, there was nothing left to stop him from completely embarrassing himself. He'd been alone and used to it for so long... to finally have the chance to let himself be close to someone, it was like he couldn't get enough of it. He didn't want to leave- ever. Hinata murmured softly that she wished they had more time to themselves, that her father hadn't died, so her family wouldn't have returned early. She said with those few days, they could have stayed together like this, just the two of them. She could have healed him, just a bit more. And he, he thought, could have healed her. Together, warm tangled limbs and tangled sheets, her hair smooth and heavy over his chest and the soft touch of her breath on his neck, it felt like they really could do something, make things a bit better. There was comfort in it.. in the playing, yes, the slow stroking, the exchange of kisses and gentle hands. But also in the slow conversation, when he held her, or she held him, and their heartbeats slowed again, and they could talk about anything, say anything. There was just nothing to stop him anymore. So he said things he probably shouldn't have.

And would regret later. Not because they weren't true- they were. But because it was just.. not what he was supposed to do. He was supposed to be strong- emotionless. Or if not exactly emotionless, then at least stoic. He was supposed to not need _anyone, _anything. He was supposed to, if not totally reject love and vulnerability, and wanting, and desire- then to at least to give the impression that he could take it or leave it. That this was all just about getting sex out of her- right? That everything he said to her, that he wanted her.. that he liked her.. that he thought he could fall in love with her? That was meant to be lies. Or rather, things he said but didn't mean, just so he could get what was important. Right?

What would Orochimaru have said? _Just fuck her, and be done with her, Sasuke-kun. She's unworthy of you._

Orochimaru, messing with him. Twisting him. Giving him a whole new set of problems, as if he didn't have enough as it is. But Orochimaru couldn't touch this part of him. There were parts, maybe, that were still alive, could still feel something.. could enjoy something other than these sick little reptilian impulses, Orochimaru's worldview. Orochimaru saw the world as full of things to either eat, fuck, kill or dominate. And Sasuke had been pretty sure he was no different. But that was bullshit after all. It was just another of Orochimaru's complicated little fantasies. It couldn't stand against the hard reality of it, this feeling. That moment, what he'd felt... He'd felt _something. _He still felt it.

So, he said to Hinata- _no_. It wasn't the sex. He wanted her. _All of her. _If he'd just wanted to use women for what, a 'cheap fuck'? If he'd wanted that, that was easy. Orochimaru would keep him well supplied with _cheap fucks. _And that was the way Orochimaru talked, sometimes. _Just fuck her, Sasuke-kun, I'm getting impatient. _Orochimaru's voice lazy and more fluid than his usual rasp, with the wine. If Sasuke had wanted that, he got plenty of it in Otokagure. Orochimaru would bring him whatever he asked for. Orochimaru enjoyed it- he'd _love it _if Sasuke asked.

All those bloody little sacrifices, watching Orochimaru slither over the victims while that nasty, furtive little hum of pleasure faded from his body, and after he'd go to bed alone. His partners were either dead, or were wishing they were. And if they were neither, then it amounted to a dirty tactic, a business transaction for influence. And sometimes he was lonely, or his body made it's demands, and he didn't know these women and he didn't have anything to say to them after.

He was not even yet twenty, so this was too much, too soon to be something he should be _proud of, _so much 'experience', or whatever... He knew boys were _supposed _to have a lot of experience, he maybe _should _take some kind of obscene pride in all of it. But it just seemed shameful to him. He'd be mortified if his parents knew... and now that he thought about it, Itachi probably knew, or could find out, if he wanted. You only had to tap into that little hidden current of gossip in Otokagure, to hear all the tales of Orochimaru's favorite. Of all the things that Orochimaru would do for his favorite, the one who would give his body to Orochimaru, who would 'have that honor'. They really did think of it that way. All of Orochimaru's willing slaves. Hundreds of them.

And Sasuke spat in Orochimaru's face, he ignored the honorifics, he was rude to Orochimaru and turned his nose up and did everything he could- all the disrespect he could summon. But deep down, he wanted it too. He _knew _what Orochimaru would do to him. It wasn't exactly a shock when Orochimaru shoved him to his knees, unfastened his own long sash, lifted the fabric of his tunic.

Sasuke expected it. _I want that body of yours- _and of course it amused Orochimaru to mean it literally, in the way most people meant it. Sasuke had expected it, gotten that and worse, told himself that it wasn't that uncommon. Child prostitution was all but legal, practiced everywhere. Even his own family, his cuddly little leaf village, if his father or his uncles or the Third- if any of them liked little boys, they could have this too. There were plenty of young men desperate for money, poor sons of farmers. There were always people to be used and exploited- Orochimaru knew that.

He showed Sasuke in a million ways, so it was clear as day and Sasuke understood. He knew the world was like this. And he threw himself into Orochimaru's hands, wanted everything Orochimaru would dish out. Pain was somehow a way out of guilt. It was only what he deserved, wasn't it? It felt right, sickeningly _right. _Orochimaru shoved himself down his throat and he choked- and didn't care, was almost sickly, perversely glad. He wasn't anyone's son anymore, he wasn't anyone's brother. He wasn't a Leaf nin, he wasn't a member of a village, he wasn't any of these things. He was just a fucking _toy, _a thing for Orochimaru to use. Orochimaru made _that _clear. Orochimaru had been right- _you love it when I hurt you. _Fucking snake.. but it was true. It was the only penitence he could accept.

To even think of what he'd done with Hinata in the same breath as _that _seemed wrong. It wasn't the same. Not at all. _Fuck _this idiot ignorant _spoiled _Neji asshole! Neji-_niisan _had never lived under Orochimaru's thumb. Neji-_niisan _had no idea what pain was. Neji couldn't even _imagine _this, what Sasuke had done, what he'd pulled himself through. Neji could _shut his fucking mouth, _Sasuke knew all about being used for sex, _thank you. _And no- _that wasn't it. _That wasn't what was going on between him and Hinata.

But... Sasuke was the kind of person who did not like these romantic frilly terms. Lovemaking. But that's what it was. The term was apt. Hinata guided his hands. He was a quick, dedicated student, as always. It was awkward, and a bit graceless at first. They weren't used to one another. There was a lot of blushing, even with the faint lantern-light, and exertion turning them both pink, providing plausible deniability. But their bodies were trained. They fit together perfectly- and could speak to one another. They could show the way. Nature could guide them, with perfect symmetry. He could trust that. Something bigger and massively older than himself. Something that didn't make mistakes. Something that was just _right. _

She didn't cry, he noticed, when he touched her. When he held her. When he was inside her, she stopped crying. There were no tears in the soft cries that he drew from her. He could make her forget, if only for a few seconds.

And she could make him forget, too.

He did not believe in romantic bullshit of any kind. But love was natural and normal. There had been the love of his mother. The awkward, hostile half-love from Naruto. The pure, dedicated childish love from Sakura.. and he wondered if either of them still felt that way. His own fumbling, slow, clumsy affection for them, sheared off at the base just as it started to bloom.

And his own passionate, desperate, despairing, impossibly fucked-up-forever love and hatred for his _fucking piece of shit _brother, Itachi. All of that. He couldn't deny it's existence. It really messed things up for him. But it was real, love.

And it would come. He could feel it coming. Slowly, just a line of distant fiery warmth, now. Dawning. But it would come.

She trembled against him, her insides fluttering hard. He'd remember that flush that bloomed on her cheeks, her heavy breasts, he could feel it through the mesh fabric. Her bright pale eyes falling closed as her head fell back... The way she whispered his name. He'd remember that in particular, when Orochimaru's whisper started slithering around in his head again. When the nightmares came, and the panic descended again. Which it would. He wouldn't be safe forever. This moment couldn't last forever. But while it did... endless and crisply, searingly real...

He tried to burn it into his memory with the sharingan. Hinata opened her eyes and looked right at him, alarmed for just a second. She wasn't used to it.. and maybe it wasn't something that anyone could ever get used to. It _was _demonic, after all.

"No... it's all right.." she'd whispered, her head tilted slightly, like an attentive bird, looking deeply. He could _see _the byakugan start to flash in, start in crystalline structures of tiny blood vessels, little rivers of glinting crystals.. that was blood? Chakra? Intricate lacings of miniscule capillaries, curling together like tiny seahorse tails. He had to blink it away, it was too much. The overwhelming reality of her..

...as real as her deep warmth, her sweet little inner muscles that she _definitely _had been trained how to use- extremely well. As her soft fingertips pressed into his shoulders, slipped down to the small of his back, stroking and teasing the chakra there. He had to bury his face in her throat, the warm white softness of her breasts. Spilling his heartblood, his life and all it's sorrows into her, with one shuddering long gasp.

Her family would come. The lawyers would come. The ANBU and Orochimaru, Sakura and Naruto with a million accusations that were all painfully true, their love which somehow hurt even more. Itachi was still out there. All of it was coming their way. None of it was all right. All of these battles would still have to be fought. So much would have to be done...

He'd taken one step. One single step.

The sunlight crested over the cliffs and spilled through the glass, glittering on the snow. Bright rays sliced through the crystals of ice laced into the window, dancing over the walls and the polished floors. That exact second, nature's perfect synchronicity. _As if this were right. _It was. Somehow, it almost was. It was happening, and he couldn't stop it.

"Your ancestors, and mine," Hinata whispered, her heart pounding against his. "Are here. Right here. This is your house, too."

For better or worse.

And her family was coming. They had to get up and plan. Stop this, somehow. He was just moving inside her in slow waves, watching her lie back, her arms luxuriantly draped over his shoulders, her long neck and her beautiful breasts. She pressed his hands to them. He touched her as she showed him, as she locked her legs around his waist, and he moved in tight rhythms. Taking her to another peak, another.. he could do this all day. Let Hinata stroke him back to life with her brutally gentle little hands, the ones that drew all sorts of feelings and gasps from him. He could do that.. just keep doing it. Let her push him higher.. and higher. She could.. _do things.. _with her chakra control. They had to stop this.. stop this. Plan and get their bearings before the Hyuga clan returned.

_Naruto_. he thought, between the spaces of their shared gasps for breath. _Sakura_.

One step taken. He'd have to take another. And another. _And another. _But he just couldn't stop. He couldn't go back to the way he'd been before.

----

Timelessness.

Hinata knew better, she knew that it would be over _so fast. _Her family might be angry enough to throw Sasuke out of the house. And when that happened, she'd have to stand up to them. _No, _she would say. She'd have to practice that, stand before her mirror and practice saying it. _No. _No- they couldn't do that. _She wouldn't let them._

_Relax, _Sasuke whispered, half-chuckling. He was so contented now, and so was she. She could only remember the outlines of the problems they both had. Nothing was between them now, or trying to tear them apart. He held her above him, and she either moved on him, or just clenched her muscles around him. Slowly. That was the best, there was far less friction on him, that way. He could last endlessly, then, breathless, alight with long glowing fingers of chakra, like columns of light. Orgasm shifted the flow of everything, blood and neuroelectricity, she saw the pleasure explode up through him, tangles of flame, blooming like slow gusts of smoke underwater. Like veins of fire in dark volcanic stone. There was no talking.. no need for it. There was nothing to stop them, she pinched him carefully at the base of his penis and there were no worries then about him being able to last for her. He looked down, vaguely amused by that. Relaxed.. finally relaxed, the tension gone out of the soft skin around his eyes. They moved together, kept quiet together. That she was _ever _worried about this. That she was _ever _afraid of him... she couldn't believe it.

But it ended. These things always had to end, no matter how much she wanted them to go on forever. They faded out.. and she had the glow of the memories, but it hurt a bit. She always wanted things to last. But her chakra was finite, and so was her energy. She was run down from all this crying. Her body was complaining at all the repetitive motion. She had to stop. Sasuke half-smiled at her. _Are you sure you aren't trying to kill me? _He laughed, softly, held her against the hard, steady beat of his heart. She felt a bit better.

Sasuke put her to bed, tucked her in like she was a small child. He brought her the book she wanted from the bookshelf. Her favorite, the deep ocean and the monsters that lived in it. But the treasures too, the adventures, the rewards. Her old way of understanding this.. that change would be so hard, it would be so frightening, but it would be worth it.

The heat and wetness in her body faded, and there were just the deep-set ache where he'd been. Like a valentine-shaped bruise, lacy crepe paper edges, all of these feelings now were mixtures of sweetness with little fingerprints of pain. Her father gone, and her aching with the afterglow of pleasure and muscle strain. An intricate hole snipped out of her heart, too, all the things that she would never have now. No father- and no parents left at all. If it worked out, if maybe they had a future together, their children would have no grandparents. _But maybe they could be together. _Everything was a lacy quilt of sadness and anger- she suddenly couldn't tell the difference- and little sacred flames, like she really was falling in love. She was trying to focus on the laws of her family, but inside her, she still felt it. It didn't hurt so much as remind her. Like he'd left a little twinge of feeling in her, to mark where he'd moved inside her, thrust in long, smooth strokes.

And her, somehow unable to tell the difference between her body and her heart, like he'd made love to her rather than just had sex with her. And.. maybe he had. She didn't disbelieve him. She didn't sense that he was deceiving her. She sensed that he was uncertain and that he didn't know how to talk about it any better than she did. She could swear that he had these fingerprint bruises on his heart now, too.. like she could touch his heart and not just his body. Like she'd held his heart insider her and gently squeezed it with muscles as delicate as interlaced silk rope, strong enough to break the bones of a grown man's fingers, if the leverage was right. Maybe he felt this way too, aching and marked.

But. It was so.. fast. It was happening so fast, and she couldn't quite trust that. Less than a week! From the moment she'd brought him sake, and he'd barely even bothered to look at her. It couldn't be so quick.. and be really _real._

But she couldn't even begin to make a judgment like that. She couldn't even pin names on her own emotions at the moment, they were too slippery and indistinct- and overwhelming- and entirely out of her control. She was just a little bottle cork being tossed around on a choppy sea. Anger one moment, a gut-wrenching sadness the next, remembering bits and pieces of her father's voice and his hands- which were warm and could be gentle sometimes. And then other times when he shouted at her, or struck her. Others, when he didn't bother to do either, he just looked at her with such disgust that it froze her to the spot and her heart skipped a beat.

So... how could she even begin to tell if it was _actually happening _or not? She had no training for this. She'd been taught some basic underhanded ways of sizing up a man's emotions, his desires. Ways to insinuate herself in through his guard, to act unthreatening, to slip into his bed and then slide poisoned needles into the soft swell of his neck, the inner curve of his thigh. She'd been taught to trace the heavy dark cords of major arteries, swollen down her target's abdomen. A million different ways to kill. But, of course, no one had ever bothered to teach her anything about loving or figuring out love, or how to deal with it. Konoha was a village, not a military citadel- and it was meant to be a place to live rather than a grim house of death. People had families, and even the most elite ninjas were encouraged to feel warmth and loyalty... love as something that would bind them together rather than tear them apart, or destroy their skill... But still, she'd been taught nothing.

She would ask.. maybe.. Miya, who'd had a number of husbands and many children... and would know about these things. Or she'd ask Momoe, who was already married. Or even Momoe's younger sister Kimiko, who entertained the house with her own romantic adventures with the young men who made up the branch house retainers. In fact, it was like everyone, every other woman or girl than Hinata herself, was confident and assured in this. Hinata could ask Sakura- also already married and wise to all of this. Or Sakura's friend Ino- with her long-time boyfriend and intricate grasp of psychology from her family's ninjutsu. Or Tenten- Hinata could ask Tenten, who understood _Neji _of all people, who managed to expertly navigate a full-scale romance with _Neji.. _and that was a skill that was so far beyond Hinata's imagining that it really might as well have been magical.

Or she could ask Sasuke... who she imagined would frown in that analytical way, like he was unraveling a complex strategy in his mind's eye. And maybe he was the only person she really should be asking, these things maybe should stay between him and herself. But he'd already told her what he knew... and she felt that she would bothering him, pestering him for answers, if she were to bring it up again.

So silence fell, and Hinata didn't break it. She may have slept. She did, but she didn't notice it happening. Hanabi came home with a crash. Hinata started awake. She'd been dreaming of the sunny blue sky and the fresh cut grass smell in the training yard at the academy. Was she training as a student, or was she a teacher, leading the class? She couldn't remember. All she could remember was the sudden perfection that came to her movements as she caught the rhythm of the jutsu... whatever she'd been doing. As untalented as she was next to Neji, she still _had _learned, hadn't she? The gentle fist came to her like second nature now. Even Neji's sixty-four palms, the air trigrams, even the things that he had once known and she hadn't- those too came to her on the fluid wavelength of the dream, the perfect memory of the virtuosity of her body.

Sasuke was there, she felt the heavy cloud of his chakra before she saw him.

He was in what looked like shadows, before her eyes adjusted to the sharper glow of the gas lantern's light. But she saw the white of his cheek first, then the soft smudges of his dark eyes, the dark ruffle of his hair. He turned to glance at her. She sat up, blinking, wondering if she'd heard that she thought. Hanabi's voice- _oneesan!- _a dream memory. Like a ghost, a snatch of an old past. She smelled the burning paraffin wax, somewhere in the house the braziers were lit again.

But then she heard the scamper of Hanabi's feet downstairs and how the wood planks flexed under each step. "My sister is here." she said, to no one in particular. She felt for the side of her own face, her eyes. Every part of her felt disconnected.

There was a soft sound, Sasuke closing the book he was reading. But, of course he couldn't do this for her. So Hinata went alone. Her skin prickled with goose bumps where his fingers had trailed over her neck, her cheek, as he smoothed her hair back into place. That strange glimmer of impressed chakra danced, almost like static electricity, and faded out very slowly as she made her way down the darkened wooden hallway, then the swept and polished stairs. The cones of incense were like glowing orange teeth, grinning at her from deep paper recesses. Her house and all it's comforts.. and it was hers now- _I leave it in your hands, _her father had said. _Hinata-chan, _he'd said, and that little bit of affection from him was otherworldly. Magical. And now it was gone, but the house was full of ghosts and whispers and she almost could feel her father's chakra, everywhere, in every room, as if every bit of chakra he'd left from his footsteps, his fingertips, the hard sound of his voice, his presence, it now was set into glowing flames too.

Hanabi was in the kitchen. Hungry, understandably so, after her long journey back from her mission. Her bright eyes glanced on Hinata like faraway flashes of sunlight. "Hi, oneesan." she said, almost boredly. Everything seemed to bore Hanabi now, she was thirteen and newly sick of the world and everything in it. "So who croaked?" she said, between bites of rice ball. "You look too sad for it to be the old witch." She eyed Hinata critically. "Not that old fart, either." The _old witch _and _old fart _were their great aunt and maternal grandfather. Disrespect. Hanabi didn't even bother to hide it.

"It's.." _It's father. _Hinata almost blurted it again, but her eyes caught the eye of a servant. And she remembered- decorum. Tradition. "..come with me, Hanabi." she said softly, and gathered Hanabi's arm and sleeve gently into her hand, prodding her little sister to leave the room, come with her somewhere more private. Hanabi shrugged and popped the rest of the rice ball into her mouth.

In the tatami room, the space heaters weren't quite working. They couldn't gather heat inside the thin paper walls. And there was just too much empty space. The little filaments burned soft red in the semidarkness, outside of the ring of candles Hinata lit. Her hands didn't shake this time. But she could still feel the strange electrical fingerprints on her skin, almost as if Hanabi could see them too. She looked at Hanabi out of the corner of her eyes, a trick she'd learned from her father- by example. How to look at another member of the great house of Hyuga without _looking at them, _letting them know they were being studied. But to Hinata, this wasn't about taking the measure of a political rival. It was about loving her sister. Concealing it.. because love was almost verboten here- no touching, no kisses on the cheek, _no hugging ever, _no kind words except in the most starkly formal terms. Nothing was allowed. And Hinata wasn't really sure if Hanabi wanted this kind of affection. Even aside from Hanabi's normal teenager attitude of being embarrassed of her family, not wanting to look uncool to her friends, Hinata still wondered if it was really okay.

But Hanabi's chakra burned like the bright spots of light, her name. Explosive and joyous and exciting.. and entirely unlike Hinata herself. The differences went so far beyond their slight divergences of hair and eye color. Hanabi was strong in a brusque, effortless way. She just didn't seem to feel that bad about.. anything. She could dismiss worries and problems with a flick of her hand. _Aw, who cares? _Almost like Naruto, Naruto's bright sunny enthusiasm. Both of them were so invulnerable, as if they'd been somehow born without the capacity for deep pain that Hinata seemed so riddled with. As if they just _didn't suffer. _And maybe she shouldn't worry about Hanabi. Maybe Hanabi wouldn't suffer so much... Maybe Hanabi really had come to hate their father. Maybe Hanabi was just another distant unknowable Hyuga, now. Maybe she was a true member of this house now, having bloomed into the full flower of her blood.

"It's the old fart, right?" Hanabi said, cutting the darkness and the silence, like bright flashes of light. Laser light, so precise and so assured. Hanabi's chakra was like that, webs of sizzling lasers. She snorted. "Even _you _wouldn't be sad about the old witch, so it has to be the old fart." Hinata raised her eyes from the circle of tealights just in time to see Hanabi cross her arms, satisfied in her decision.

But it was time, and this would have to be said. So Hinata faced her sister, turning her footing so she was on a direct line with her. As if it were a kind of sparing stance.. and maybe it was. Maybe this would be a battle. Maybe Hanabi would fly into one of her tantrums. Maybe Hanabi would shout and throw things- she had before. Hinata had been sitting here on floors like this, kneeling and flushing with sympathetic mortification- as Hanabi talked back to their father, and their father caught Hanabi's upraised hand in his, forced it down to her side.

_I hate him. _

Hinata heard that as clear as if Hanabi had said it.. you couldn't look at Hanabi and see the way Hanabi looked at their father, the way she spoke to him- and not hear it.

And also- _how could you _not _hate him?_

In Hanabi's light, bored, almost vaguely condescending glance, the way she looked at Hinata and sighed, as if Hinata were a slow child, and then smiled as if she would still put up with Hinata anyway.

But as Hinata thought these things and studied her sister, the weight of her direct gaze had caught Hanabi's attention. And Hanabi was actually starting to squirm a bit now, she looked back at Hinata with an uncertain tilt to her head, because she suddenly wasn't sure why Hinata was doing this. Understandable, too. Why would her sister know, or understand? The news had come out of the blue for Hinata, after all. It had struck her- like a blow to the back of her head that she'd never even seen coming.

Hanabi frowned over her own byakugan, a perfect copy of Hinata's own, set in slight miniature.

"Your chakra is all _weird." _she said, wrinkling her small nose. "And you've got.. " she giggled "..oh my _gaaawd, _you've got fingerprints on you! You've got _boy _fingerprints on you! Oneeessaaaaaan!'" she was so delighted by this, it seemed. "Hey, oneesan, he's still here, isn't he! The mean boy, he's still here! He _is_ your boyfriend!"

"Father's dead, Hanabi."

It slipped out. It just _slipped out. _She couldn't control anything anymore.

Hanabi sucked in her breath, almost as if Hinata had punched her instead.

For a second, her face was still. A white mask. A perfect little white Hyuga doll.

Then her mouth twitched. And she laughed.

There must have been something on Hinata's face, in her eyes- just then. Because Hanabi immediately clapped her hand over her mouth. The metal guard strapped to her knuckles glittered in the candlelight.

But that giggle.. that little gleeful ripple.. it had been sincere, it had been Hanabi's first reflex, her first reaction.

Hanabi quickly apologized, much faster and more eagerly than she would have ever before, for anything else, ever.. as if it really had just come out of nowhere for her too. As if she had no idea why she felt that way, why she'd done _that. _Giggled. _Laughed._

And Hinata was already kneeling now, she had sank to her knees. So she just let her head fall down, and her hair slowly slip off her shoulders and onto her knees. The tears came after it, slow like raindrops at the beginning of a storm. Hanabi sighed in the close half-darkness. And her feet slipped over the mats. Hanabi's arms were strong now, she was a full genin, she was growing up and pulling away from Hinata so fast. She was the only family Hinata had now. Hanabi sighed and put her arms around Hinata, as if she was the big sister and Hinata was the little one. "Aw." she murmured, surprisingly gentle. "Don't cry, oneesan. Come on.. don't cry.. awww.. don't cry..." Circles of words, like a pebble dropped into a pond.

Sasuke found her with Hanabi. Hinata heard Hanabi's voice. _Who are you? _ _I'm her sister, who are _you, _huh? _Sasuke took her outside to train. The night was ending. The cold air had the bite of morning. Moving with him, sparring with him... it was all taijutsu, it was all thrust and parry, it was all an elaborate dance, and her footing was perfect. It was something she didn't even have to think about now. Even if she couldn't quite believe it... she almost felt that if she stopped to realize it, that her taijutsu _might actually be better than Sasuke's? _Then she would jinx it. She'd tempt fate. Like her ability was an illusion. And most of the time, it felt that way.

"Good.." he whispered. ".._good." _As he guided her hands- and she followed through. Her body had all the right answers, all her muscles held their own perfect memories. One part of her life was going right, for once. ...the one part that had always been wrong.

"I wonder if he would have approved of me now." she whispered, as they paused, both of them out of breath and steaming with sweat and exertion in the cold air.

Sasuke just took her hand and lead her into another attack pattern, it it really was an elaborate square dance, like they slow-danced together in the snow and the early morning darkness. Her emotions were all tapped out, and there was peace in that. The hard exercise was comforting in the way he had said. He kept her moving- so she couldn't stop, she couldn't _think, _she couldn't have time to remember too much- until she was too exhausted to stand up. Then he carried her back inside. Hanabi's voice flickered in the darkness beyond her closed eyelids.

"You _are _her boyfriend. Fess up."

And Sasuke's sigh of irritation, closer. And Hanabi's voice again, bright fire- _hey, you're really mean. How come she likes you? _Sasuke was scolding Hanabi, telling her she should show some respect for her older sister. Hinata would have told him how useless it was to even try, but she was so tired. She just listened. She almost felt comforted by this, it was so normal, Hanabi's sulkiness and offhand rudeness.

And if Sasuke had used ninjutsu, he would have won in a heartbeat. His ninjutsu was worlds beyond hers. His genjutsu might be just as advanced. But.. Her taijutsu.. her taijutsu, the house style, the gentle fist. She'd worked on it so hard that she couldn't imagine _not _working on it, not training. You trained enough and suddenly it became normal, you barely noticed it. You didn't realize it when you got better.. you couldn't see the change as it happened.

But it happened. Things changed. She got better. Sasuke carried her upstairs. She felt Neji's chakra flickering like the beat of white bird's wings on her temples. Just at the edge of her sunken byakugan. But now she was trained well enough that she didn't have to activate it full to see... or to know. The sun was rising. She felt it, too. Heat gathering. The family gathering close. They were in the village now. The advance scouts were beginning to carry word to the house. The servants all around her were buzzing with activity. As if the house was a paper wasp's nest. Everything being moved into place. And a letter that Sasuke accepted from the servants, and read to her: the news that school was cancelled today, the village would work together to get the power lines back up. And she would have been there. She would have been with Shikamaru and Lee, leading the students in their assigned part of the task. She would have seen Sakura and Naruto. And Tenten, and Neji would have been with her too. Everything would be normal- _her father would still be here, at home, when she returned. _Even if he didn't talk to her, or bother with her, even if he had no praise for her that day... at least, _at least, _there would still be a chance.

But now she was all out of chances.

She watched Sasuke call the school administrators- _Hinata won't be coming in today. Yes- she's ill. Thank you. _He frowned with mild irritation as he spoke- businesslike and steady in a way that made Hinata's stomach twist with sudden sharp envy. If she could only be so strong. He put down the phone- and she watched him lean down and unplug it.

"I'll handle things." he told her. "You rest." He sat beside her bed and stroked her hair. As if she were just a little child. As if none of what was happening now was her problem. And she could almost close her eyes, curl her toes under the warm covers and just feel the warmth of his hands... almost believe it. It was a compelling illusion. Sasuke's voice was as implacable as Neji's. He spoke, he said to her _you're strong, Hinata _and _I don't want to hear what your father said, your father was wrong. _And it became true. It became something that _could _be true. It solved nothing, but she could almost just not notice that.

She slept. She dreamed. The family drew closer, her byakugan watched always, waking or sleeping. Her family's chakra drew near. But never as close, never as near as Sasuke was. He stayed at her side, the entire time. She could sleep. She was safe... finally. He stayed.

It shouldn't have worked. It shouldn't be working. Naruto and Sakura had tried and tried and tried and _tried, _to no avail, for more than six years. Hinata just couldn't grasp _why.. _Why now? Why was this different?

Warmth, shelter, understanding, acceptance. Membership in her family.

Was it really that simple?

"He probably just grew up a bit, dear." Miya had said a few hours earlier as she shucked oysters with surgical precision. "Have you ever tried to reason with an angry thirteen year old?" She jerked the knife up towards the second floor, when Hanabi was having her daily tantrum. "There's your answer." she said.

Her family would be so furious. Her family would say the most awful things about his blood, because the Hyuga didn't believe the Uchiha were really good enough anymore. If Neji wasn't pure enough, Sasuke was _less than nothing, _Sasuke would be dismissed out of hand. She had to stop them, she had to _stop _her great aunt before she could look Sasuke in the eye and say to him _you don't belong here. _Hinata had no idea how she could do this, she was so terrified of her aunt, of her uncles, of the council, of all the disapproving white eyes. She'd never been able to stand up to them before.

Sasuke was there, still. His chakra was a contained stormcloud, hovering over her, protectively. She felt him near. The family's long shadow was just falling over them both, their chakra was creeping back into the house.

Sasuke's hand was on her cheek, his arm was loosely gathered around her.

Could she protect him? Could she be that strong. Could she do this... It didn't matter. _She would have to._

------

Hinata cried herself out, finally. It took her almost two days to do it, and endless sessions of training and well- lovemaking. He still didn't like that word. He was glad it worked, but he still wasn't the kind of person who _made love, _ever. Even if he was falling in love with her. She finally seemed to find that place of silence, that peace that came with acceptance of the death. Sasuke lay her down gently against the pillows. He stroked her hair away from her face.

No matter how much pain she felt now, he thought, his hand pausing on her cheek, it didn't change the facts of her strength, her determination. He knew she would go on. She would have a future. These things would never change. He kissed her forehead, gently, so he wouldn't wake her.

He read the letters as she slept.

The storm had slowly broken into a million soft pieces of cloud. The sky was full, and little bits of blue peeked through. The pale gold sunlight of a winter sunrise shone in his face as he climbed out into her little rock garden, it's little benches. He perched on the frozen wood slats. Just let the tears go. He used his usual method, to just not struggle, let them come. And he could feel a bit more like he was just a disinterested bystander, seeing something that had nothing to do with him pass him by.

And when he looked up with wet eyes, the sun glinted at him from every surface.

There was noise out beyond the closed-in walls of the little garden. Voices. Unfamiliar voices, he could hear them wavering up from the front of the house. The travelers were here. He stole up the wood crosspieces, crept over the frozen tiles of the roof. Perched up there like a gargoyle, and one of them looked up, byakugan eyes flashed white-hot in the sunlight. Saw him. Fixed him against the sky.

Who was it? He had no idea. It could have been an uncle, an older cousin, there were many of them now in the front yard, stretching in the sun and yawning into their hands. There were servants milling around them, carrying in bags, and a bit behind them, a whole set of them carrying a sealed wooden coffin, covered with paper tags and sealed with wet black ink.

And beyond that, retainers. Samurai, almost, wildly dressed like the samurai Sasuke had seen in the Wave Country, long ago.

Small and far away, so far below.

But here. Now. Right now.

It was time.


	15. Signatories

Hinata's family was her own responsibility. The gates were locked against Naruto and Sakura, even if she could call them. The seclusion would endure until she became clan leader, until her father was in the air, until she had the authority to open the locked doors again.

She was dreaming, abstractly, about the fallen phone wires and power lines in the frozen village. She wished she could call Sakura, but the death meant that there would be no contact with the outside world. There would be ceremonies and vows taken and her bloody fingerprints on scrolls and contracts. She would become the clan leader, and then surely something would change.

Her family would want to do something about Sasuke, he would be their first order of business.She could picture the pinched look of distaste on her great aunt's face, the disapproval of the council, the disbelief on Neji's face that she could ever be so rash. Unspoken, behind that, that she was foolish to even believe that this could be real, or that it could come true. Even to put her finger on what she wanted would make her feel silly, having romantic dreams while she should be consumed with the administrative leadership of her clan. She thought that her first act of headship would be to keep it from happening again. Because Sasuke was an adult now, and he could probably handle it. But she didn't want to stand by and watch it happen. She wished she could call for Sakura, and Sakura would bring Naruto, they could walk in the south gardens under the sun and the two of them could help her understand about standing up for herself. They did it so well, it was like watching a master perform a technique before learning it yourself.

But the situation was what it was. Nothing would change that. This was Sasuke's phrase, _nothing can change it, _she had fought the urge to try to talk him out of it before.

Sasuke told her to rest, so she did. She gathered strength that she needed, with three days worth of tears siphoning off her own storm centers. Inside those born in the village was a flame, and inside her was the makings of a star. But outside she was the same she always was. She was not religious in the way the monks and Buddhist priests were, but in her own way she prayed for strength to come. The change would happen, soon.

She expected to dream of fire and it's fanning of destruction, rebirth, purification, the flame seal that would be placed in pitch ink on her scroll of legal instatement.

But instead she dreamed endlessly of water. It was up to her knees, the water mains had burst. All through the house, servants and retainers and family members all worked with jutsus but the water was bottomless and could not be bailed. She thought of a sinking ship, springing holes and taking on water. She saw the sharp focus of the dream, the detailed rough scabs of rust on the bucket pulling on her arm, Neji was beside her and the lamplight gave his hair a gloss of burgundy. She was uneasy, but aware that she was dreaming.

She woke and she expected it to be night. Chilly light pushed on her eyelids. She felt the ragged electrical edge of Sasuke's chakra, but he was not nearby. She slid back into sleep.

This time, like into an ocean. She flashed upon older memories of learning how to hold her breath and dive far under the surface. In the space between her sixteenth birthday and the end of the summer, she had trained specially to dampen her body's warmth and it's metabolic rate. She could imagine that she was a turtle sleeping under gentle currents on the riverbed. Down in the depths she could feel the darkness, and the crushing pressure that squeezed her lungs into little balls of crumpled blood vessels; the red leaves on the Japanese maple in her rock garden would shrivel to their broken forked spines this way, and she could picture it easily. Her vision would darken as the seventh minute was passed. Her body could be trained to go without oxygen. Her brain could not, so slowly the dim waters around her would start to spin. After ten minutes she would scissorkick herself to the surface, sharp and alert under a dripping cap of icy water. She would signal to her sensei on the boat to prove that she was awake and of sound mind. She would have to perform the exact sequence of hand motions, state the date and time, hold up numbers of fingers to show she was clearheaded. She had done it many times before.

The pearl divers on the coast trained to hold their breath for eight minutes, so she reached for ten. They dove to fifty meters, so she stretched for an even hundred. She needed to prove it to herself. That she could do this. Only the metaphor of change, her chosen way of rationalizing it's danger. But a way to bargain courage out of herself. She wanted to prove that she would do anything to change herself and no limit would stand in her way.

The underwater darkness was there for a second, a snatch of sensory memory. Cold and water pressure. She had learned to dream lucidly, but never managed to stand in the center of her dreams and recognize herself and her shadow, prove her alert awareness. But now she was too far under and she could only remember that there was something coming, far above on a snowy surface. Something was coming and anxiety became ripples. She saw the undersides of snowflakes feather to the water's clear skin, and then their splintered scatter. She couldn't remember the name of what bothered her but her subconscious understood well enough to reach for the fire, her fears of the funeral. It woke her up and Sasuke was still not with her. The light in her bedroom was as grayed and dampened as sound underwater.

She remembered because she had seen it before. The clan leader would put a torch to the coffin. The jutsus would be cast so that the smoke would rise in a white cloudy column, the pops of burning bone would be muffled, the mourners would only smell sweet grass and pitch, rather than kerosene and scorched meat. This was how a Hyuga ended their life. Their mistakes were erased. They became perfected in the fire. It was no accident that the hidden symbol of the family, behind the sundisk manji, was a tongue of flame.

Still, as a young child at her mother's coffin, she had not understood death. Her father pushed her firmly behind him, and heat from the torch in his other hand spilled and pressed hotly on the crown of her head. She ducked under his long sleeves. It was the clan leader's duty. Soon the clan leader would be her.

She thought that maybe she'd ask the council to blindfold her. Not that this would stop her byakugan, but it would keep her from seeing her father's face. She wondered if she could look at him and do it. And then, she had a strange, sudden vision of herself leaning over the pyre, ripping the cloth from his face and trying to see into him, pry open his eyes, get him to _look at her, _see her, notice her, now that he was dead and still- caught in time, unable to push her away or stop her.

She was not fully awake. It was the crack of the window hinges that woke her. She sat up and Sasuke was climbing back into the room, his hair hanging in his face. He looked up at her, shaking his hair curtly away from his face.

"They're home." he said, and winced.

"Oh.." she murmured. And then they'd kicked in the door.

-------------------

Standing on the roof had been his first mistake. He let them see him. They picked him out instantly and then they were upon him.

They tore down the paper doors and others were behind them. He saw only fingers, hard hands, flashes of motion. In the past, maybe he would have assumed that the waves of retainers and almost-samurai and guards and the glut of the Hyuga family would be no problem for him to take down single-handed. But that was his younger self thinking. Arrogance. For all he castigated Orochimaru for _his _arrogance... and he'd stood and looked down on them curiously, let their brightly colored ornamental cloaks and strange foreign weapons take his attention and he'd lost the handful of seconds he had.

So the fight was over before it began. The room was already flooded with their white Hyuga chakra and the white heat in their hands. Hinata was only half-awake and through the thicket of armored hands and raised voices he saw a glimpse of her pale face, eyes wide and startled. He heard her struggle to raise her voice over theirs. "Stop! Wait!" She couldn't cut through the noise, she couldn't seem to catch their attention.

He knew this anyway, he told himself. He knew that he couldn't take them all on at once. He knew he'd lose the fight. He went down under their jabbing hands and didn't bother. Why make it worse? He was going to ache from this anyway, they drove iron fingers into nerve clusters, it would hurt more if he struggled. The key was to relax, not knot up his muscles against pain. The disadvantage was that he had time to think, and realize that _no, _he was not invincible, he was not the genius Itachi was; and frankly even Itachi would probably think twice before taking on the entire retainer guard of the Hyuga family. This bunch were cranky and tired from the road, they had no time to ask questions before the gentle fists came out. They forced him to his knees and he let them paw at him until they were satisfied that he had no weapons.

Hinata was screaming but he couldn't see her anymore. Thread ripped close by his ear, the shirt he wore split down his back and there were more hands, he was officially tired of being grabbed at, but the fight was over anyway, hands pinned his arms back, he had no leverage, his limbs were numb and mostly he felt like a pincushion, leaking tiny streamers of charka. He saw the flank of his own forearm as his head was bent back so they could jab at his neck. The tiny tracklines of pin-bruises snaked up and down into the inside of his elbow. Like tiny insect bites. And then his attention was stolen sharply by their hands on his wounded shoulder. He bit down on the scream and somewhere, Hinata was screaming for them both. The retainers ignored her. They pressed him to the floor, and a few of them sat on him for good measure. He had securely lost. Fight completed. He felt surprising nothingness. Maybe they'd shut off his rage with his chakra.

Hinata stopped screaming when another voice came out of the hall.

The shock of the fingerstrikes had clouded all his senses, he couldn't see anything and the tatami mats were pressing into his cheek. A geta edge wet with melting snow was jammed into the back of his neck. His shoulder throbbed, deep and resonant as the steel temple bells. He had leisure to think about how he _should _have considered that the returning clan guard would have no reason to expect to see a missing nin. He could assume that he was recognizable, probably in the bingo book. It was strange to think of himself as a missing-nin directly, he preferred to edit his awareness of himself and his situation a bit more carefully than that. Clearly Hinata was not quite yet in command of this group of retainers. Her voice was nearby, but distorted by the waves of shock. He thought that maybe he should try not to black out. Then he thought that it wouldn't matter anyway, nothing really mattered. He could hear her, echoey with the shock, pleading now, tears in her voice as she said _please, please! Please let him go! _The retainers didn't listen. Neither did the newcomer, a woman with a commanding voice. The rage was nowhere. He thought that adrenaline must have blotted it out.

Amazing how fast it was, though. The rage was usually instantaneous, riding behind his reflexes, but it lagged minutes behind. Useless to blame Hinata, who was busy arguing herself hoarse trying to get this pile of retainers _off _him. Useless to blame them, they were just doing what any clan guard would do when they saw a criminal appear in the house.

It came later, when he he heard Hinata talking in the hall with that someone else, someone who arrived and parted the retainers, silencing Hinata with a word. "Quiet." Sound magic showed him it's heavy after echo. He heard the sound of the slap, and saw the angry red welt on Hinata's cheek as they pulled him to his feet. Her eyes connected with his and her lips formed _I'm sorry. _ He saw the tall Hyuga woman beside her mostly as a flying hand. The crack of it on flesh like a clap of thunder. Hinata turned her face and hunched her shoulders as the woman raised her hand and he _knew _that instinctive reaction, he knew what it meant.

"Let's go." a retainer growled in his ear. They shoved him out of the room and didn't give a damn if he was angry or not.

---------------------

Hinata's cheek stung. "She's hysterical." her great aunt had said. Her aunt had stood over her as she fell to the tatami mats of her room. Her great aunt's eyes had glared down at her from a great, snowy height. Main house servants had dressed her and pinned up her hair. They were her father's servants, or had been. She was entirely awake now.

She sat on different tatami mats, later in the same day, long petals of pressed linen trailing out around her like a discarded flower. The sun imposed her presence onto the mats behind her, it was a blazingly sunny day. The milky layers of paper screens on the shady side of the house had fooled her. Outside, icicles melted off ragged pine trees. Water dripped off the roof. The council had yet to acknowledge her. She sat before them, in a square pool of sun.

Numbness was normal now. The past few days were carved out with a bright margin in her mind. This was another life, and it was fitting, she thought. The death would demand a catastrophic change. She stared at her hands, folded in her lap and avoided the intermittent hail of all forty eight white eyes. Sometimes she would look at the documents in front of her instead. The paper was bleached to chemical white, waiting for the press of her bloody finger.

They had come through the walls, tearing through the door. Her room now was full of workmen hastily pulled from the gardening and outdoors staff. They were putting in a new door, repairing the hole kicked in her wall. She had left through a maw of ripped paper and splintered wood. But that would all be right again, when she returned. The entire council was in attendance. She had to be strong and stick to business. She would chose the moment to ask about Sasuke.

She had never seen all twenty four of them in the same room. She had never been invited to these secret meetings. Her father had sat in her place, facing them, and he had answered to them. Her father would have been at the crosshairs of so much piercing scrutiny, like the daylight that spilled behind them. It was hard for her to see their faces, she mostly saw the vivid coronas of fire that the sun made of their receding hair. And she heard their voices, she could guess who was looking her over even if she couldn't see their eyes. She wondered if her father had learned to deal with a chorus of shadows with fiery halos. He had to answer for his failure of a child, after all. He would have more to fear then her. _Justify your bloodline, _they would have said. Maybe they forced his hand. They pressured him, maybe, and maybe he didn't actually mean it. Not all of it. He chose her in the end. She had accepted a vague screen of contempt in place of her father or knowing him. But she had thought of her father as omnipotent, first. He had sat here and endured their questions for close to twenty years.

His own mother had ruled before him, and now her sister sat in the center of the shadow line. Sun gleamed off polished pins in her hair. She was talking to Hinata's grandfather, the father of her mother, and both of them were now the power center of this house.

They were discussing her. They did not address her, though she thought she felt the passing heat of their eyes. She looked down at the will scroll unfurled in front of her. There was her name, in her father's handwriting. Proving it was true. The council had reviewed all these documents before they even bothered to call her to the session. She sat across the wide polar expanse of tatami and felt the silence that hushed around them, a sacred circle of her family closed around her now. They would maybe never find her worthy, but they would protect her.

"You belong to us now." a councilor said. She didn't know him, he was a fifth uncle from another branch of the family. He meant that she would be their instrument, she would do their will. She was anointed by her father's hand, but they still had expectations of her. To change the house and move this regiment of elders would be a tightrope walk. She could plunge over either side.

But she closed her eyes and through the haze inside her now, she let herself think about what this meant. To be the clan heir of the Hyuga clan was to be finally recognized by your father, even if he had waited until his fatal heart attack to do it. It meant that the blood and the flame of the clan lived in you, so you were guided by all of the clan leaders that had come before you. You were their instrument too, and you would be moved by them, they would work through you. Your judgment was therefore somehow divine, it was animated by knowledge that had transcended all human limitation. The Hyuga were only human and imperfect so long as they walked the earth. At death, their flesh burned away. The clan cremated them only as an afterthought, a reminder to those still alive of their true nature. It was so dizzying, the sheer power of her clan.

Enough to forgot the blood on it's hands, the slow rot of a thousand cuts. It hadn't been just Sasuke, the council had written off Neji. They had written off her. They had authorized all kinds of strategic killing. Hinata sighed and thought that yes, they were ninjas. They killed, but they did so with a shadow that lived in the wake of the samurai's bushido; they simply did what the samurai could not do. They made bushido possible, and there was honor in that. She bowed her head and closed her eyes against the pierce of the sun.

They would open her finger and then it would be true.

In the meantime, they talked about other things, as if either her instatement wasn't important or it was a given and therefore not worth discussing. If the decision had been made, if she should be reading their unspoken cues, she couldn't tell. Her father would have had to learn this way as well. His own mother had died without warning. He might have sat here on a morning like this, the house full of foggy insinuations and whispers and death spirits flying all around him. He might have felt the way she did.

In the meantime, she had to obey. The strange euphoria was like a steel flame in muddy waters. But to even smile would seem wrong to the council, her father's choice had put her in an invisible spotlight. Sasuke wouldn't have understood this, he would have asked if the council could veto her. And no, they could not. Not without calling her father's judgment into question, not without claiming that the spirits that moved through her father were wrong, that they could be superseded by councilors still bound by human minds and human limitations. Sasuke would have crossed his arms. He would have wanted to know what the problem was then.

The problem was that she was a problem, she wasn't good enough for these people, she couldn't possibly live up to their expectations, she might be good enough now, she might be able to pretend for a while but what if-

Panic was something she had to lock up as well.

She thought she must have changed overnight after all, if she could sit here and be watched by all of them, feel afire with panic and excitement and guilt and horror and anxiety, and have none of it show on her face.

But her insides were disconnected now, anyway. A bright line between her face and her thoughts. It was like the technique she used to separate her conscious mind from a fresh injury.

The council said that they had put Sasuke away for safekeeping. They meant that the one to be kept safe was her. No, she could not see him. "Isn't that the point?" a councilor said. The question was rhetorical. Hinata understood. She nodded. Was it wrong or right? She couldn't tell.

The council talked about Sasuke, they said the things she knew they'd say- his bloodline and his family, the Kyuubi, the troubled history, the usual snide Hyuga commentary on Uchiha decision-making and Uchiha policies. The line to the sun was broken with them.

She bowed her head, she held the idea of change in her head like a Zen koan, a concept that you couldn't get your thoughts around all at once. It had to be circled. She conjured Shino, his words and his warning. She couldn't take herself seriously, but she could believe him. He said that change would be unknowable, it would know no rules of scale or obey any anticipation of time. It would happen in margins between her worries and her missions and the mess her failure had made of her life. It could be slow or swiftly violent, she could never see it coming, it would catch her by surprise either way.

The council had moved on, as if nothing had happened. They were going to wait and hold on to Sasuke until after the funeral. Her family did not feel that the incidental dramas of a runaway Uchiha orphan should divert the course of house business. She nodded. Her face felt frozen from the heavy formal makeup. "Lets get on with it." her great aunt said brusquely. The sun had traveled. Sasuke was locked up somewhere. If they'd hurt him then she would have no way of knowing. Council attendants sorted the paperwork. The sting of a kunai tip and her fingerprint went into the printed record.

She stared at it, wet and small on a field of white, red in a forest of black ink. She held her breath. Her finger seeped blood onto the fine watered silk of her sleeve. The council had more business for her. She was the clan leader, just like that.

----------------

They put five guards on him. Two that announced themselves to him and three that did not. There may have been others, moving under hiding jutsus too esoteric for him to see through or just keeping watch from well out of range.

But he had no intention of resisting, so it just didn't matter. They put him in a room far across the house. He was too dizzy from the fingers of the gentle fist to watch which nondescript woodpaper corridor he was dragged down in turn. They had chakra leeches on him for a while but he recovered from the vertigo and realized that he'd hallucinated that, they'd just blocked his chakra. He couldn't open his eyes for a long time, but he felt the little strike marks. He was dotted up and down with them, like he'd be attacked by a surgical strike of wasp stings.

The five guards were about as interested in him as they were in Hinata. The three hidden ones took turns paying attention to him, but even their chakra emanation started to dull after a few minutes. He was being smart enough to be uninteresting, and the two that stood outside the door played cards and talked about idle village events. He noted it for a while out of sheer habit, until he could sit up again. But otherwise, he didn't care. Useless details. His injured arm was full of hot pins and needles, it was like a sleeping limb that never fucking _woke up. _Excruciating, so he found a way to prop it in his lap that only made him flinch for a moment.

Sleeping was out, not that he was tired. Adrenaline sat in puddles, nowhere to go. He could go through the door, he could bet on taking out one guard from surprise, getting the other from luck, running away to escape the other three when they came down on his head, but what was the point? There was nothing he could do but wait. He sat on the futon. He thought he could meditate. He could try to. But he managed to brood and feel sorry for himself more than anything else.

If his clan were still alive, manhandling him this way would be an act of war.

Of course, his clan was all dead. That was exactly the point.

There was no one asking after him, no one to notice he was gone, no one to come down on _their _heads, crack the whip the way his father used to, rally the forces of the Uchiha clan, be a real part of this village, a pillar, not just... Not what he was. Traitor and runaway, but the words were losing their sting, and he needed to _know _how much he'd lost, he thought. To grasp the scale of the killings was nothing, he could tally the dead as a small angry child. But to really understand the loss of the clan, it's ideal? It was something built so carefully, destroyed by Itachi in half a day. Less then that. Burnt to ashes.

So the Hyuga clan did whatever it liked, and was probably manhandling Hinata too, one way or another. Her family carried on with ridiculous honorifics, _Hinata-sama _like was the empress or a goddess. And the way they carried on with their self mythologies, they believed it. They bowed and they dressed her up, and underneath it all they despised her. He thought the Uchiha clan would have just done what they'd done to him- ignored her. The Uchiha clan at least knew how to get to the fucking point. The Hyuga were going to celebrate themselves for a solid week now that their clan leader had dropped dead. Sasuke had to be around to witness this. He rubbed his temples with the arm that hurt the least and considered pestering the guards for aspirin. Getting up felt like it would involve too much pain. They had learned about it at the academy, but no one ever mentioned how much the goddamn gentle fist _hurt. _

His body was useless, so he tried to think.

So the Hyuga clan didn't like him? Fine, he didn't like _them _either. He could probably take out the lock. But where would he go? He was right where he had to be. He could waste time. He could burn his energy up in rage. He could panic or he could face it.

He was changing his priorities. Nothing more than that, Itachi would still end up dead no matter how he got there, dead was dead. Sasuke knew all about that. To change his focus to his secondary goal would make Itachi's death even more necessary.

But it was happening too fast. He'd just met her. But it wasn't as if it was a marriage proposal, it was just reparation to her. She'd make it impersonal if that was what he needed from her. She was trying to make it so that he could get what he needed without having to be friendly with her at all, and he understood what she was trying to prove. It was a struggle to be worthy of it, but the die was cast. He couldn't have made any other decision then this. Go back to Otokagure? He thought he might actually _not _hate himself that much, for a change. He thought that he might almost have had enough of hate. She offered a way out and when he had his bearings, the rebirth of the clan might become possible.

It was tempting to think more about that beginning than this end, anyway, He was locked up far away from the library, but there on the small wooden bureau was that same old history book. Hyuga Tetsuya's writing, preserved over almost three hundred years.

So many others said that he was just a damaged Hyuga, a damaged byakugan, his ideas must have begun with adversity- and the shadow of a idea, just like this. Hyuga Tetsuya waited and divided the assets of the clan. And somewhere on that road, in the midst of his journal-writing, he chose a new name for himself. And for all his descendents. Sasuke did not consider himself a sentimental person, but it was something to see it written for the very first time, _Uchiha_, Hyuga Tetsuya's clean precision brushwork.

Because if Itachi had been born to destroy the clan, Sasuke would have to be nature's answer to that, the one who would close that circle and put the clan back together. If he couldn't be a genius like Itachi, a swordsman like Itachi, a ninja good enough for his father like Itachi, worthy of notice by Itachi, if he could never win Itachi's love and approval, then all there was left for him to do was be what he was. He could put things together. He could sustain incredible long slogs of effort. He could work in the dark and the cold and with no encouragement, fed only by the fires he lit in his own mind. If genius was Itachi's gift, then this was his.

Because the horrors he'd seen didn't have to change his loyalty. He had always believed. Something had changed Itachi, pulled him from that path. But maybe Sasuke could be the one who _would not change, _who would do this too, no matter what, no matter what Itachi did.

So he collapsed back on the tatami mats and stared at the diamond pattern of wood slats in the ceiling.

The situation with Orochimaru was well past the point of diminishing returns. Killing Orochimaru would also be a lost cause. A waste of energy. You didn't want to feed the snake, he just thrived on it. What had Sasuke's father said about this sort of situation? _You both get dirty and the pig enjoys it. _Hiding might be his best bet. Hiding wasn't that much of a shame for a ninja. Orochimaru could deal with the Hokage, Orochimaru could deal with _Naruto _if he wanted Sasuke back. Let _Orochimaru _have his ears yelled off for a change.

Orochimaru had already played through the illusion of his death once, anyway. Did Sasuke really want a reprise of that? The Leaf had been on his tail and Itachi had killed his three companions. The Leaf crashed in and Naruto made it worse. Itachi turned Sasuke's own sword on him- like it was nothing, like he was just sipping tea calmly, Itachi didn't even change expression. The Four hauled him back. Orochimaru turned out to be suspiciously alive, jeering that Sasuke hadn't even noticed, hadn't even suspected.

The truth was Sasuke _had _suspected, he'd felt a slow drip of doubt finally when he was weeks afield. He wondered why it had gone so well, exactly as he'd have wished in his worst nature, not in the swordwork or the fight, but the sharingan's other space. Too much as he'd have wanted, taking Orochimaru's prisons and his people, breaking his stranglehold over the village. And too unfamiliar anyway, building a team when he'd never wanted a team before, when these tactic weren't even his _own, _when Orochimaru was moving through him like a black snake in inky waters. Orochimaru ranted and raved about disobedience and Sasuke's insurrection in running out at the point of body transfer. But soon he tired of that, he put down his bamboo whip, he cut Sasuke down from his shackles, he smirked toothily and mentioned that- _actually, Sasuke-kun- _it had all be a big, splendid game!

_I sensed that you wanted to kill me, Sasuke-kun. _Orochimaru said sweetly. He was decked out in full geisha costume, his body completely transformed to that of a slender and elegantly tall woman. The irony was that his limbs still had their full strength, he could crack the whip hard enough to split flesh deep into the muscle. He laughed with a geisha's demure giggle. _Aren't you surprised? Ah, the look on your face... _ Kabuto came to suture Sasuke's back closed. Orochimaru giggled to himself and reapplied his makeup. Orochimaru's usual coterie of bloodsuckers swarmed around, fawning over their master. Sasuke watched, closed his eyes, thought damply about his life, what he'd wanted. What it had come to.

So Sasuke should have left Orochimaru then. He should have backed out by the end of the first year, when Orochimaru finally got down to business, you could say, and his sweet mask came off. So did the gloves, so did his pants, so did everything else. He should have never allowed this, he should have hated himself less. He should never have gone in the first place.

But he had no way out and no energy or time, no space in his own head,. The swordcuts in his wrists weighed on him for half the spring and by then Orochimaru had him again fully. His escape routes were all cut off, Orochimaru had changed reality around him, locked the door behind him. As the summer after his eighteenth birthday turned into an icy rainy fall, Orochimaru seemed to stand back and smirk at him from a distance. Sasuke looked up at him, across the polished space of the dojo floor, and thought that Orochimaru was different, his tactics had shifted. But what kind of games he was playing then were far beyond Sasuke's understanding, he never had much taste for all this Byzantine intrigue anyway. He did what he always had done when he was depressed- he worked harder and finally did almost nothing but work. He felt like he was training for nothing, but there was no reason for anything, anyway. The universe was merely cruel and arbitrary. The world turned grey. Itachi's trails went cold. Somewhere in that he lost track of Orochimaru and forgot to keep watch. Or maybe, he just no longer cared. Maybe it was in the depth of that winter that Orochimaru hatched this plot.

And maybe Orochimaru would come all the way to Konoha to get him, but that didn't seem much like Orochimaru's style.

Better to have Sasuke come to _him. _Or maybe, better yet to have Sasuke glimpse some little tempting edge of a happier life, and then snatch it away from him.

Or maybe, Sasuke thought, this was _all _genjutsu. Maybe he was still on that dojo floor, minutes away from waking to the agony of his broken arm and a concussion.

He didn't know what Orochimaru's game could be, but he never understood Orochimaru's games. That was the fun of it for Orochimaru. Maybe Orochimaru's new game was to use the depression, kill Sasuke's will to live, so that he just knelt at Orochimaru's feet and begged for some semblance of a honorable death. The seppuku cut may have been significant, Orochimaru loved the ruse of a hidden clue. He loved to gloat his superiority over his prey's stupidity, their lack of focus, in not seeing or understanding in time, getting themselves caught.

And now that Sasuke thought about it, Orochimaru had another game. He said he wanted the sharingan and he indulged Sasuke's ingrained faith in his own clan. Sasuke had grown up in it's shadow, after all. He believed because he'd been taught to believe. The Uchiha clan of Konoha were noble, they were true aristocracy. Orochimaru nodded and seemed to agree. And then, with deftness, Orochimaru had shown him what _real _aristocratic families were, what the royal family was really like, and that the mercenary ninjas who lived in shabby little villages and anaesthetized themselves with fantasies of nobility...

...were really just the throwaway contracted servants of the real power players. Even the Hyuga, with all their money and all their self-importance, _they _were ninjas too. Their sacred clan head could be bought and used as a tool. Their entire house, the entire village, all of it lived by the whim of the feudal lord of the Fire Country, and of the shogun above him. _Your little clan, _Orochimaru said with controlled glee, _is not even wealthy enough to join the merchant class. _

And it was true. There was a reason ninjas secreted themselves away in hidden villages. There was a reason they begged the favor of the shogun and the daimyos. There was a reason the Hokage invited the daimyo to the chuunin competition and bowed at the man's feet.

So maybe the Hyuga were significant, but Orochimaru couldn't have planned for Hinata to find him, that was far too random. Would Orochimaru have watched her, learned her habits, sent Sasuke tearing into her path, all his puppet strings torn but still live and connected to Orochimaru's hands? No, that was too much work for Orochimaru. And- it would be boring. Orochimaru would find Hinata boring, the Hyuga clan would put him to sleep. You had to remember what Orochimaru really _wanted. _You had to forget the rules of logical planning, you had to understand how Orochimaru thought.

Maybe to put Sasuke back in enemy hands, then. His worst enemies in the world, the ones who could change his heart and shake his absolute determination. He'd had to run from Naruto, from the things that Naruto said that were the _truth _and were too painful and too impossible to face. He couldn't be anything other than an agent of vengeance, he couldn't imagine his life any other way. He could do that or he could carve his own guts open, bleed to death and let his ancestors berate him for never putting it right.

And now it was the same. He felt down his side, found the little red line of pain in his side. He could break the window, use a shard of glass. Open the seppuku cut and do it right this time.

He could do that, or he could run.

Maybe he would have run anyway, even if Orochimaru hadn't cooked up this latest game. Flight over forests and frozen rivers to Konoha's outlying territory. That seppuku cut in his side. A little taste of his old village and his old companions again- and this time Sasuke would be injured and unable to run from them. He'd have to stay, and he'd have to _think, _and he'd have to live with the searing guilt of it all- but maybe Orochimaru hadn't bet on him going through with it.

Orochimaru might have planned on Sakura and Naruto- of course, they would hear of Sasuke's return, they would descend within the damn hour! Sasuke would have no peace. Maybe Orochimaru wanted to force him to be cruel to both of them, rub his nose in it later.

Or maybe Orochimaru was simply tired of him.

Sasuke was tired of _this_. He needed a way out. It wasn't just Hinata, she was a random chance. He liked her- fine, he did. It might be just hormones and rushing blood and infatuation- fine. They'd work that out. He needed to be squared by the ANBU. After the ANBU ripped Orochimaru's serpent coils out of him, washed out Orochimaru's toxic seal, stitched him back up again- then he'd know what was what. He needed to get to know Hinata slowly, without her family shrieking in one ear and Orochimaru hissing in the other.

She worried, but it was just her family, messing with her.

Her idiot family was wrong. It wasn't the sex, wasn't the cheap fucks or his stupid reputation, wasn't the dubious 'pleasure' of exploiting a kind and gentle girl, one who was only trying to help him. It wasn't all the things her idiot family and her idiot cousin said about him.

Sure, he loved being inside her, but so what? Infatuation. And harmless, beside. He'd love to have _her _inside him, for that matter, if that were possible. The way Naruto's sannin-sensei carried on, it probably was. Everything was. They could do all that later. There were things she had, her house and her respectability, her approval and the way she made the world seem manageable again. He wanted them.

Not more than revenge, no, but revenge wasn't exactly something he _wanted. _It was something that was necessary. His mistake had been going after Itachi without the weight of the clan behind him. So what if it would be the Hyuga clan at first? The Hyuga had become the Uchiha. So what if Itachi sneered at that, Sasuke would see it through. That was what he did. Revenge would be made into a planned and supplied operation, he would think more like Uchiha Tetsuya and less like Uchiha _fucking _Madara.

For a change.

Maybe he needed the voice of ancient authority to condemn Itachi, Uchiha Tetsuya's words in his journals, his plans and his recorded progress of founding the clan. Indicting and condemning Itachi by implication, because how Itachi have any moral authority, when he had trespassed against the will of the clan founder?

So maybe it really _was _different this time, Sasuke thought. The sun was slanting low in the sky. Hinata would have to be released by her family soon, they couldn't keep her all night. She would come to see him then. They would work something out. The ANBU were not insurmountable. He had allowed himself to commit all these dangerous acts of closeness and actual genuine human emotion. The world hadn't come to an end. He closed his eyes and slept.

----------------

It was as she expected. They didn't approve, they didn't understand. They didn't want to understand. The clan demanded her explanations for her actions, and she recited them. The council made their ruling. She was clan leader. But there was nothing she could do.

She had to keep herself entirely in check. She knew that they were waiting for her to betray her own bloodline, cry and scream and argue, insist on her heart when she had to be a hard-headed instrument of her clan's will. Her father had to be put to rest. Her house had to be put in order. She wanted to see Sasuke and she thought that she would demand that he be put in comfortable surroundings. She asked and the council said that he was fine, he was just a little upset right now. They hadn't hurt him.

"It's not right." she whispered. But she couldn't find the room in the rules, the clan laws, the ceremonies of perfectly inscribed sequences of words and movements to interrupt and assert her own will. Her own little flame. There was simply no time.

She wanted to see him but they had their plans for her, ceremonies and documents that had to be signed. She had to be present and give her sincere attention, because now it was her life's purpose, it was something that should be her top priority. She couldn't just leave Sasuke, but the council heard her request and her fifth uncle shook his head, her great aunt said "Your mind should be on the clan, not this missing nin. " Her great aunt told her she should know that. She was taken away and there was a flurry of activity, all the travelers were back. She was taken from the council to the welcome meal and then there were meetings with advisors and she wanted...

But it was a tide and she couldn't swim against it.

As the unsmiling regiment of servants undressed her from one ceremony and for another, she thought about her father's heart seizing, like jammed clock wheels. She had seen it happen once, the elders of her family and the aunts and uncles, the cousins and the entire house moving as one to summon their ninja healers, to put her father back on his feet. The whisper rippled through the house, _who would lead the clan if.. _and she fled the meeting room. She went out to her little rock garden and tried to get out of that crowded atmosphere. It had been early winter, near new years day. She knew what a heart attack felt like, she had been through one herself.

When Neji put his hand through her chest. His aim, completely accurate, and he aimed to kill.

But to put those two pieces together, to try to find out where her father's perfect health had somehow sprung leaks, where her grandmother's had before him, why the clan heads didn't seem to make it far past forty, and even how common it was for women to die in childbirth anymore, with those same ninja healers, with all their magic and medicine, in this day and age?

She knew, she thought. She'd tucked the idea away and decided to not look at it.

And now, she covered it with another image. She could assemble the scene. Maybe her father had sank to his knees again, his hands pressed to his chest, grasping at flesh and sinew fruitlessly, his fingers seeming to go numb at the last moment. She had been sitting close to him the first time, she saw the spasms that ricocheted up and down his strong forearms. Maybe it had been just as sudden, this time. Maybe there was no one around him. Maybe it was only a few other members of the family. Maybe he sensed that the end was near, and like a forest predator, went away by himself to die all alone, far away. She consider it, weighed it, decided that she could believe it.

_Justify your bloodline, _they would have said to him. And he would have had to deal with what his child, his blood had made of the ancestral line. Maybe the hand that cast her out wasn't entirely his. She had never thought about the clan's web of power, it's coaxial lines of influence tugging on her father's sleeve, pulling him in all directions. She had never been told how it was, she was not ready. She was too young. And her future was maybe in doubt, until her father could make the mistake of her mother right again. Divert responsibility. Put it on the other parent, and then wipe it away. She thought that she'd known, and she still didn't want to see. There was no point in seeing. Selecting what not to see was a key Hyuga survival skill. She had to live in this house.

So she sat in her private little bath and stared at the high tower of smoke. The winds whipped it up so far that the dark fragments of flying ash turned silvery against the clouds. All things could be burned away in the fire. They were burning sagebrush to purify the house before the funeral and the cremation. The fires would burn well into the night. She'd sleep under the columns of smoke. She'd get up tomorrow and she would be the clan leader of the house of Hyuga. She would wake up in the house as it's leader, for the first time. She had looked at herself in the mirror and tried to see the change. "Please leave me." she had whispered to the servants. She had undressed alone. She had wanted to go to Sasuke, but not like this, tattered and exhausted, the red stain feathering from the edge of her cracked lips.

She could imagine the things her father had done, things that she didn't even know about yet. She would have to stand in his place now- and if it had been her choice, and she had to die or Neji did? If to refuse the Rain village would mean war? Now she'd carry around heavy things like that, nothing less than an entire clan, an entire village.

And maybe someday, when her own child put the torch to her body, she would have done terrible things too. And she would need to be purified in the fire. She was his flesh and blood. She would have to do things- hard and terrible choices. That was what a clan head did. She would have to, because the only difference between her and her father now was time.

She wanted to go see Sasuke, but the new, unsmiling servants were back. There was more paperwork. There were more demands on her time. Her attention was dwindling and she was interrupted the moment she left her room. She was taken to a fitting for more special clothes. a new kimono for the cremation. Cloudy grey flames embroidered along the hem like the torch she would carry. She held her arms out from her sides obediently and was so tired she could barely keep them up.

After that, the small temple at the back of the house. The coffin was there. It was surrounded with points of flame. She pictured it, anticipating what she would have to see. The house yawned in front of her. She recalled her dream of water. The split mains. The flood had come through the temple floor.

She had to go. The servants flanked her, and she had no choice.

Before they burnt him, she was to go and sit at the altar and pray. She was to do that at evening, when the sun began to set. In the bath, she had known this was coming. She made up a secret plan that she would steal away from the house at sundown. She would evade the new servants, and go to the temple at the river's mouth. She would ask the priests to help her. She would burn mugwort and meditate. She would perform the old sacrifices to the kami of her family, and ask them for a vision.

She would not tell Sasuke about this, even if she could see him to do so. She knew his courage and his hardness and his iron determination; but right then she sensed that she needed to shy away from his cynicism. He disapproved of religion. His skepticism would destroy her bridge of faith, kill the connection to her father before she could even make it. She was too soft and too easily influenced. But this time her softness had to be nurtured. Sasuke pulled her away from it.

..and he would understand, too, the secret need behind this. It would be just so much bizarre misbehavior to her family. But Sasuke would know. Hinata wanted.. _needed.. _to see her father again.

But in the end, the day drained away. Her family closed in around her. She couldn't bring herself to care enough, suddenly, to evade them, slip away. She was a hollow shell of skin and bone. Inside her was a star.

And everything she did in this life may be completely meaningless. She may be preordained, cast into her paces before her birth. Before that of her father, before that of anyone else. It was too late and she was too tired for these thoughts. But she couldn't find any satisfaction in tidy answers. Neji would tell her that thinking this way would never bring her peace. And he would know. But she couldn't help herself. Not now, she was cracked right open and couldn't pull herself back together. Her father was in that coffin, that floated in a murk of lantern light and brazier smoke. The servants had dropped away, in reverence for this moment. She was alone. She knelt. She waited.

If all she was, in the end, was a star, a Hyuga sun, a Hyuga heir, the newest Hyuga clan leader, then she would rather shed her flesh right now and go live in the sky.

It would be better there than here.

She did what she was told. She looked up at her father's shrouded body. Her byakugan went through the oak coffin like it wasn't even there. She looked at the clean cloth that hid his face. She thought that he looked so empty, somehow. Something intangible had gone. It wasn't her father anymore. It was just a dead body. It was her father gone forever, and nothing but ashes left in his place. She would never love him now.

"I need to see him." she said to one of her new servants. She couldn't tell if she meant Sasuke or her father. Both. But they took her arm and steered her to bed. _Ashes, _she thought, watching the smoke from the windows, all the way upstairs. There was nothing left in her to argue with them.

------------------

So.

He spent some of his next day in captivity contemplating torture and interrogation.

And- not really caring. Pain was just pain. He'd almost be relieved. Guilt was much worse than punishment. Criminals felt relief when they were caught. They were glad because they didn't have to run anymore, or worry. This was one of the many things Sasuke's father had said-

-to Itachi. Sasuke had listened quietly by Itachi's side, and his father had continued talking as if Sasuke wasn't in the room at all.

Which, in his father's mind, he probably wasn't.

What was the phrase? An heir and a spare?

Hinata's parents had done this too. It was standard practice. Not that Itachi would ever be eclipsed- by anyone. Certainly not by someone like Sasuke, who was merely excellent at everything he did. Excellence was nothing. What he needed was to be extraordinary. But only Itachi was, and that was what made Itachi so rare and special. He was a genetic fluke, a one in a million chance. Legends were written about people like Itachi.

And did anyone write about the legendary warrior's _little brother? _

So, he brooded about that. About being lesser and inferior. And in his mind, that _was _something worth punishment. Hinata tried to put a good face on it, but he wasn't fooled. They avoid the subject- until they couldn't avoid it anymore. And then Hinata would knit her white fingers together and bow her head. She would immediately veer into guilt as if somehow it was all her family's fault. As if he'd never made the fatal decision himself? To recast him as the innocent victim of a larger clan's venal injustice. She did it to turn the subject away from what they both knew was there. And- she feared. Rationally, she feared it. Because pity would set him against her, wouldn't it? It would arouse his anger. And nothing could be served by that. So they talked about it in the strange light of her revisionist history. Her family's guilt, and therefore it was suddenly a discussion of her crimes- her family's crimes- and they could just gloss over his.

He knew she did it to protect him, and because she didn't want to hurt him. He didn't hate her for it or even hold it against her.

Because-

as always, the only person he was interested in hating was himself.

And being alone, poked apart, surrounded by fresh heavily armed Hyuga retainers every three hours, he had plenty of time to luxuriate in the full sting of that self-hatred. Pain was a kind of relief. He felt better for it. He really did wish that Itachi had just killed him. Killed him along with everyone else- but, he was alive. Despite his best efforts, he was alive. He was going to have to talk in a few hours or a few days, either way.

To Naruto.

He hadn't seen Naruto in a good two and a half years. He'd managed to duck the both of them, and Kakashi too. Not that Sasuke could ever really be entirely sure what Kakashi had seen, or what he knew. But all of them had been securely out of his hair for a long time.

Since- the lost year.

When Orochimaru was supposed to take him. And instead Orochimaru decided to twist reality around him, tie it in knots.

It was a game, of course. Orochimaru tore it down around him. _Still so unimaginative, _Orochimaru said, shaking his head.

And Sasuke finally realized that what Orochimaru wanted wasn't his body, wasn't his loyalty or his fear or his anger, or even his respect. It wasn't the sharingan, that was just a brightly colored toy to Orochimaru, a kind of bonus. Orochimaru didn't vivisect the villagers to learn anything. He didn't sacrifice the prostitutes for pleasure, sometimes he didn't even bother to undo his pants. He didn't do anything to Sasuke for the logical reason, the straightforward reason. He said _there's nothing more satisfying than taking something beautiful and destroying it, Sasuke-kun. _

And- _you're just like me. You're exactly like me. You already _are _me. _

_Not that I have to destroy you, _Orochimaru said, chuckling. _You've already destroyed yourself._

Destruction being a clumsy word, for the total dissolution of something rare and precious by itself. Whatever made you alive or human or somehow worth something, even if you killed for a living and trained most of your life doing nothing else. The point of dissecting the girl was to take the spark of her life and snuff it out. Simple. The point of taking him from his village and indulging his tawdry little chase after his brother was the same.

Wasn't it?

_You assume that you were worth something to begin with. _Orochimaru said.

Anyway, Sasuke had laid low after that.

And avoided the Leaf and everyone in it.

And more or less sidestepped Orochimaru, vanished into himself, continued with his training and wondered in some deep hidden part of himself what it was all _for _anymore.

His family was gone, and it was like they had never even existed. Itachi, too, had been in and out of sight, fingerprints and clues and a vague record of spy intelligence on his whereabouts and activities. It added up to a long swell of radio silence, and not much else.

Itachi had left Sasuke behind. He was interested in other things now. He had new people that drew his attention. Sasuke was an afterthought to him or- quite possibly- something Itachi no longer thought about at all.

And maybe it was _all _stupid. All of this. Maybe he was just kidding himself. Maybe it was real but he'd fuck it up anyway. He'd convince himself that love was weakness and that closeness with other people was excuses and stupidity. He'd decide again that somehow he was no longer like everyone elseeveryone else with their friends and their family- _he _was a fucking _avenger. _

Like that meant something.

_Like it would solve anything._

So here he was.

Sitting there, under captivity, not even fighting back. His younger self would have exploded in fury at this. He would have-

Never mind. His younger self was fucking _stupid. _His younger self had gotten him into this mess in the first place.

He could refuse to see Naruto and Sakura. It was possible that the Fifth, being Sakura's mentor and therefore probably a soft touch, would let Naruto bust in no matter what the rules said. But- Sasuke didn't have to talk to him. He didn't have to turn his head and acknowledge Naruto's presence at all. Naruto could shake him and yell in his face all he wanted- Sasuke wouldn't bat an eyelash. All Naruto would have was his wretched body, and really who the hell cared about that anymore? Who cared about anything, he was finished. Used up and spat on by his own mentor, who lead him on for what amounted to a dirty joke.

Sasuke really didn't have much to say to Naruto anyway.

And if he was going to do that, what the hell did he think he was doing with... well, whatever she was now. A lover or a girlfriend, the words really didn't mean very much. He had no business pretending he could have a normal life. Did he?

Itachi could be dealt with through the Hyuga clan, but that wouldn't fix _this. _

Not that Naruto could be successfully ducked. Naruto would come and he'd demand that conversation, he wouldn't care if Sasuke wanted to have it or not.

And at the end of it, he'd have to face Hinata. She was intertwined with the two of them. Naruto and Sakura were her friends. That was obvious. Sound magic or none. _Naruto-kun. _Maybe they were a bit more then her 'friends.' Sound magic had something to say about _that, _about the way she said his name.

A mess, therefore.

More then he could have dealt with on his best day. People weren't his forte. Socializing wore him out. Talking made him want to go sit on the damn roof again. Thinking about it made him consider going up there and never coming down.

He'd be cruel to them. He wouldn't be able to help it, they just _pushed _his fucking buttons so hard. They did it on purpose- Naruto sure did! Sakura was another story. He didn't want Hinata involved in this. Hinata was _already involved. _Naruto would come for him. Naruto would corner him. He wouldn't be responsible for what happened!

He didn't want Hinata in the crossfire. Naruto could take the back of his hand, his scorn, but could she? She'd never speak to him again. This thing between them, whatever it was, it was new and fragile. He could destroy it. He could do it by accident, on defensive reflex. He didn't want to, but he was all raw edges. He could slice her to ribbons just for being close to her.

Orochimaru would have laughed at him for this, he thought. He scowled up at the ceiling, the watery marks the meltwater made as it flowed down the windows. Orochimaru would have said... _And what did you expect? I know. You expected her to love you. _And then a chuckle. _You. _Orochimaru would have had a good laugh at that. _You still don't understand, Sasuke-kun. You think your life is worth something._

As Itachi had said, his miserable life, and his inability to give it up. Hinata's voice being the lone quaver of dissent in his own mind, against a full-throated chorus, all his favorite demons. Itachi, Orochimaru.. the wandering hungry ghosts of his clan too, on a _really _good night. It was hard not to believe in it. Hinata believed otherwise. Her evidence was her actions.

She'd held him, she'd slept on his chest like she wasn't afraid and he wasn't some disgusting criminal who'd ripped apart children and raped prostitutes, and more- because Orochimaru's crimes were all his now, it was an act of complicity. She'd accepted him, taken him into her body and found nothing in him as horrible as she should have. Her white eyes had pierced right through him, and she'd never found it, that deep evil nature that Orochimaru insisted he had, that made him a part of Orochimaru, their acts one and the same, that made Orochimaru a part of him.

So maybe it was lies. But did he want it to be true?

It might be a lot easier to think that they were both stressed and they were both lonely. And while Hinata should have probably known better, _he _was a broken pathetic excuse for a human being. He was so inept at using any part of himself that didn't involve his ninjutsu that _he'd _had no idea how to distinguish lust from something deeper. And it was all just the two of them fooling themselves, getting drunk on the promises of happiness and togetherness that were just never going to materialize.

Some people got reprieves. Some people got second chances in life. Some people started with nothing and the force of their irrepressible personality just _made _their dreams come true.

But he wasn't one of those people.

And Naruto was an even more complex subject than Hinata.

He had no patience suddenly, the feeling of Uchiha Tetsuya's hand on his shoulder had evaporated. He was locked up alone and he wanted to know what the hell was going on. The guards wouldn't tell him anything. "Wait." they said. For what? For more guards, apparently. For guards who were going to take him to meet with lawyers.

Lawyers, soft paper-pushing bureaucrats from the village center, who were the only ones who acknowledged him. The Hyuga stood back and looked out the window. They were having a quiet conversation about gardening and which type of azaleas should be planted in the next few weeks. There was one Hyuga, a much younger man closer to his own age. This family member sat with the lawyers and looked Sasuke over, but never spoke. The lawyers explained. They handed him scrolls. They said that, legally speaking, the two clans were almost the same thing anyway. But to come under Hyuga clan protection, they would need his signature. They said that his estate would remain in trust. They pushed aside his questions about money. They put a small knife in his hand. Now that the decision was at hand, he stared at the words and felt for a sense of certainty in his choice. He couldn't find it. The guards drew restless, the lawyers packed away papers. The young Hyuga who sat with them adjourned the meeting. The other Hyuga at the window never even turned around.

And the guards grew bored with him again. They took him to a more crowded part of the house to read, to sign, to make his decision. He had never been anything but swiftly decisive.

But this was new and he thought that he could walk the same path he always had, he could stay safe in his rage and his misery. He could make another choice, and suffer the consequences of _that, _too.

He was disoriented anyway, because he'd been ready for them to try to screw him on the money. That was the only thing that could matter to a noble clan, that could pull this much of the bureaucratic war chest of Konoha into the family's house and it's sacred space. Or maybe these were Hyuga family lawyers. All the more reason, then. Strip the orphan of his money. Do it while he was too confused and distracted to see it coming.

And it was what the Four had used on him, too. Their simple argument- _you give up something to gain something. _He weighed how much he was willing to let them take from him. Maybe that tall old Hyuga woman had calculated on that. She would be the decision maker behind this, he was sure of it. He'd barely seen her, and already he knew who was pulling the strings in this house. Hinata was eighteen and would do what she was told.

The Hyuga were all around him, superior looks cast at him by people who had never been in Orochimaru's mausoleum and watched him cut apart a small child. People who had never been shoved to the ground by their sensei and spat on, never had to be anything but insulated in their arrogance. He shivered, caught in the warm cross of space heaters and candles. It couldn't touch him. Six eyes tilted at him from the arranged points of his guards. He had the knife in his hand so he could look resolute, and convince himself that he was.

"Time." he growled at them, when they wanted to pull him back to the other side of the house. He needed more _time. _He pushed away their hands. "Let me _think." _he hissed. They locked him up again, scroll and all. Could they do this to a Hyuga clan member. An _official _member? Sasuke wanted Hinata back, he needed her to explain these people to him.

"Where _is _she?" he demanded, hanging in the doorway of the paper room they put him in. The guards looked up boredly from their hands of cards. They looked at him like they'd planned on slacking off and he was ruining it. "Where's Hinata?" he said, again.

"Busy." one said.

"Pipe down." said another.

Sasuke slammed the door. As hard as you could slam a sliding paper door- which wasn't very hard. He felt a bit better. He kicked the pillows off the futon. He considered putting his fist through the wall. He considered that _conducive _to his thinking process, you could say. He considered going out and wringing the first retainer's neck he could get his hands around. He considered just ripping up the scroll and throwing it in the lawyer's faces. He considered the window and seppuku again. He considered growing the hell up and what it would actually mean at this point.

"Fine." he growled, at no one. "Fine!" He stalked the small length of room and kicked the pillows aside. He picked up the scroll. And he snatched up the knife.

---------

Time moved on without her. She felt it's indifference, and that of the world. The sun would still rise and set. The seasons would still turn, nothing would really change, no matter what she felt now. And really, she thought, nothing she did was even close to significant. She thought she'd feel better if she could see Momoe, or Neji, or Hanabi, it was hard to be in the hands of the council at the best of times. They didn't have time for her feelings. It went without saying that she couldn't see Sasuke, and that she should not yet ask about him. An attendant from the council shook her awake.

When she sat before them, it was harder than ever to keep it out of her mind. Even if it was true, it didn't change anything. Her father had done horrible things before. She turned these from crimes, into _decisions. _She absolved him of guilt in the retelling. She made it a hard choice he had to make. She did not believe that her father had hated her. She didn't believe that her father had hated her mother, or Neji for that matter- when he bent to burn the curse seal into Neji's forehead. It was sanctioned action. It was probably an order that he couldn't refuse.

Neji cried all night, afterwards. He was racked with seizures, hidden away- but Hinata heard the servants whispering. Neji was four years old. Soon he was back on his feet. There was a band of white gauze around his small head. There was something impossibly hard in her eyes. He knew that the clan had killed his father. That _her _father had killed his. But surely her father had no choice. The council ordered him to brand Neji. The council ordered him to kill Neji's father. The council ordered him to kill Hinata's mother. He obeyed. And she obeyed. They were exactly the same, now.

"I want to see him!" she said to her great aunt, her own perfect Hyuga mask slipping, and only for a moment. Shame welled in her and burned under her ceremonial makeup. Her great aunt's eyes could freeze her blood, strike her down where she stood. The slap was just a signifier, something for her to remember. She remembered it, she could never forget this. Her great aunt's eyes fell on her like a deadly warning. Senbon tips, needle-points flying right at her, head on. She bowed her head. "I trust there will be no further disruptions, Hinata-chan?" That was the dry voice of her grandfather.

"There won't be." her great aunt said. Hinata kept quiet.

When they told her to speak, she did.

The council reviewed her actions and she told them what she had done. They were not happy about what had happened at the cottage, but the evidence was plain on her face and in her chakra, she couldn't hide anything from them. "Cooperate with us now," the musical voice of her seventh aunt said.

"This is inexplicably disobedient behavior," a fifth great uncle remarked, to murmurs of ascent.

"And an inauspicious start to your tenure, Hinata-chan." another said.

"We should have seen it coming."

"It's an improvement on her last-"

"Not much of an improvement."

She saw the kitchen staff packing up steaming pitchers of sake and considered just dulling her senses directly.

"Well, do we want her involved with the outcast?" It was her great aunt who had spoken. Silence fell in the wake of her voice.

"That one never went anywhere." The soft voice of her grandfather. "Thank goodness for that."

A tapestry of their voices, like ripples and streams of water. Or like the constant soft sound of the melting water outside. They talked, and they weren't exactly unkind to her. They knew her, they had watched her from birth and annotated everything she was and wasn't. They had put her fingerprint on the golden chain of clan leaders. And, she thought, when they said she was foolish, well.. they were just being truthful. They were just trying to protect the clan, and do what they could with her. She was theirs. Ultimately, they wanted the same thing.

And they didn't want her to be with Naruto, she had always known that they would never have allowed it. She knew that her affection for him was seen as the seeds of disloyalty. That they overlooked it was a small miracle. They were satisfied when she formally told them that she would not have anything to do with him. Not in the way they meant, the way that would harm the bloodline. She could be his friend, she could socialize with him, she could exchange letters, she could put her personal reputation on the line to save his teammate. She could even sleep with him, but if she dared to marry him or say that she wanted the future clan leaders to be _his _children, well...

"At least this one's not from the gutter." The murmur was polite, sweet-voiced. She turned her head, found the face and the gentle steeliness of her third aunt, a distant relative.

So it was a kind of relief when he married Sakura instead. When he dated Sakura seriously, when it became obvious to everyone else and not just her, because she was watching carefully. It made things simple, because the decision was made for her.

"So he's your problem now, Hinata-chan." an even more distant great uncle said. "You'll have to decide what we do with him."

"Until you open the gates," another said.

"It's too late, she's already allowed him to touch her." her great aunt said crisply. She looked at Hinata as if from a great height. Her eyes were like distant points of starlight, hard and indifferent.

Hinata raised her head to look at her. And then, with courage that flowed suddenly, like electricity, she met her great aunt's eyes. To look another Hyuga in the eye was always significant. It was tantamount to a challenge. It was a statement, no matter how it was done.

And her great aunt smiled, for the first time. "Good." she said. "Now I can see the blood." Hinata looked away before she could see her great aunt's withering scorn. "Finally. It seems Hiashi wasn't entirely a fool after all." So Hinata forced herself to look back.

This was the sister of her father's mother, who had been clan leader before him.

Now Hinata was clan leader after, and her aunt's quiet gaze spoke a multitude of scornful judgments. At the bottom of each she thought she could glimpse the smoke signal of a worry. The clan moved through it's clan head. The sprits of the clan heads before her moved through her. It was as if her great aunt stood atop a sheer cliff, black against the sun, her eyes hidden in shadow. But felt, like two clean blades through her skull. Killing accuracy. The power of her clan, Hinata thought, and it's double edge. Her heart's damaged murmur turned to a skip. She looked down. She forced herself to look up...

...as if from underwater, and Hinata looked back from a great depth. She could pull back into the slow meditative thoughts of the diving sea turtle. As her lungs crumpled and oxygen turned into a network of icicles through her blood, she could slow down and understand things. She could see, and she could understand.

Her great aunt had never really approved of her father either, he married the wrong person and he was too brash, he was too much of an indefinable _something_. Maybe no living clan leader could ever really be good enough, they were still limited by their human minds and human bodies. She heard snatches of conjecture and put together her own picture of what was going on, behind closed doors and in rooms and meetings that she was never meant to get wind of. Now she could be outside of herself enough to see what her great aunt saw. A romantic girl who couldn't afford this pointless drama.

"He'll hurt you, if you give him the chance." her great aunt said, holding her gaze. "This is his chance."

She nodded once.

"Go then." her great aunt sighed. She waved her hand like she knew nothing could stop it from happening.

Hinata bowed her head.

She got to her feet.

"Don't worry, obaa-sama." she whispered.

"Protocol, Hinata-chan." her sweet-voiced fourth aunt said.

"We're wasting our time even trying to discuss this." The rumble of a much older uncle. "Let her do what she wants with the Uchiha runaway, it won't last half the year."

"Better than the other one."

"Barely."

"At least she's strong enough-"

She closed the door and cut off the welling of their voices.

She walked and her body moved, but there was nothing left of her. Something was being built in her place. She leaned against the long windows on the south side of the house, saw the smoke reaching far into the sky. She had dreamed that the house was full of a black wind that she couldn't see and that no one else felt. She was directed to the far east wing of the house, and she told the guards at the door that they were dismissed. Their eyes said that they were not used to taking orders from her. The nodded and one shrugged. She was calm on the outside and she felt the weight of the fancy kimono layers, she wished for her simple ninja's clothes. She was calm but her heart raced under her unbroken skin, loud enough for her to feel it's murmur, the damage Neji's fingers had done.

But this time, they heard her. They obeyed. She was the clan leader and it was her decision now. She would not have Sasuke walking around her house like he was a prisoner, watched and locked up, chakra leeches and accusing Hyuga fingers poking into him. There were lines she crossed that meant things only to her. The secure wooden door was opened and stood open as the guards left. Beyond it was a closed door and a darkened paper partition around the small bedroom.

His shadow was in front of her, behind the door, and she'd missed it in her hesitation. Just like before, he could move close to her, completely undetected. He waited for one second, the space of a slow breath, and then slid the paper door back. She stared, a ghost with a little flame dancing in dark inner space, and her eyes rested on the strange familiarity of his face. She didn't mean to look him in the eye, but it was gravitational. His eyes on her, his attention and his concern, it felt like the warmth of his hands.

This was the moment she was supposed to go to him and she felt it, she saw the readiness and expectation of it in his posture. His eyes and his expression were as serious as ever, but he seemed different now, he had changed something since the day she first met him. She looked at him and she thought that it must be her father's hand now, her father's clear-eyed judgment that worked through her. Because she couldn't think of how a boy who'd come to deceive her would have to struggle for the words the way Sasuke did. She couldn't see a skilled liar blushing and looking away, getting tangled up in his own frustration. If he had meant to use her, he would have known exactly what to say. He was trying as hard as he could. She should go to him. She wanted to, and she wanted to go hide in a crumpled little ball of tears in the corner, too.

"I chose to support you." she said, and looked at her feet in their little split-toed socks instead. "Even though the council disagrees." Her voice was hollow and inside it was a hiss of smoke. It was as if now, as the clan leader, she could be nothing else. She had to reach for clan business, treat him like a member of the lost Uchiha clan rather than _Sasuke, _it was hard for her to track how her idea of who he was had changed. It would have been unthinkable to imagine the Uchiha Sasuke from her academy classes with warm hands, or forgiving her for anything. "You should be angry with me!" she blurted. She wanted to put her hand over her mouth, she was just saying utter nonsense. Like a wind-up doll, the chain of ceremonies had released her and now she didn't know what to do. "I have to put the torch to my father." she said. For no reason. She swiped her fingers over her eyelids, wiping tears that weren't there, doing it on reflex.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. She watched him shake his head. "Your family is crazy." he said, simply. She saw that he disapproved too. Everyone disapproved. "Not your fault." he said, when she tried to apologize for the retainers and their rashness. "No," he said, when he saw her expression. "_No. _Not your fault. Don't blame yourself." His voice was as stern as those in the council chamber. "_Hinata_." he said, when she looked away.

That was so easy for him to say. "It shouldn't be okay." she whispered. She eyed him, almost nervously. Her face was a painted mask and her body was an instrument weighted with the chain of clan leaders before her. She felt immoble, but she worried that she would collapse in tears. Would it be right, the Hyuga clan leader bawling at the feet of anyone?

"I said it wasn't your fault." he told her insistently. She heard worry working it's way through his voice. He frowned at her, looking her over. Finally he just took hold of the long square fold of silk at her wrist, then her forearm, then her shoulder, his hands far more gentle than the sharpness in his words, his frayed nerves- and who could blame him? Two days, and only now she was freeing him.. He pulled and she stepped into the room. "Why aren't you angry with me?" she argued, but he just reached behind her for the deadbolt.

"You know how brainwashing works?" he said sternly. He was unfolding her from her layers of kimono. "Isolation. They separated us for a reason."

"They wouldn't let me see Neji or Hanabi," she whispered. She was staring up at the ceiling because he was so close and she couldn't bear to look at him. She was certain she'd cry, and then she'd be completely useless.

"Of course not." he said. His sarcasm had an acid bite, even when it wasn't directed at her. He'd never directed it at her, but could she bear it if he did? He saw her avoiding his eyes, and then his hand was at her cheek. He nudged her down and she couldn't avoid looking at him. So she looked...

..into him, into his focused, aligned, deadly serious cast of chakra, into his strange dark eyes, into the nervous static of his affection, which was there. She could see it.

"I don't know what's wrong with me." she whispered against his shirt.

"Same thing that's wrong with me." he said, steadily. His hand was on her cheek again, rubbing the makeup aside. She saw him frown dangerously as he found bruises, split capillaries. "And also that your family is crazy." he added. He almost smiled. "I'll deal with them."

"What do I do?" she whispered.

"Not what I did." he said. "Not what I did in the first place. You're not going to make the mistakes I made. I decided not to wait." He averted his eyes, locked them on something across the room. And then back to her.

"I'll help you." he said. His almost-smile. Then he smiled at her, a glancing brightness of hope she'd never seen from him. Not a polished lie, It was a completely unguarded twinge of emotion, there for a fraction of a second- gone. His chakra unfolded behind it, sunlight cut at colored angles, light sliced by a prism, diffracting as if through high powered binocular lenses. Exact and precise and focused, in every move he made.

"They can't get rid of me now." he said. He held his hand open to her and she felt the wetness of blood on his finger.


	16. Reverie

So, Sasuke thought- decision made. Signed and put into law. Unbreakable. No going back now.

He was strangely calm about it.

He showed Hinata the scroll and the contract. "Legal protection from the 'great house of Hyuga.' " he said, reading the scroll's wording- and not without sarcasm. Hinata reached out with slow movements. She ran her fingers over the dried smear of his blood, as if tracing the whorl of lines stamped from his fingertip. Her face was motionless. She seemed too drained now for any kind of emotion. He remembered that, which meant that it would pass for her as it had for him. He pushed away his own nagging worries with that thought. They were useless and would only get in his way.

"Bath." he suggested, nudging her towards the small bathroom off his place of captivity- a guest room, he guessed. "To get that paint off your face." A polished black pine wood tub was there, smaller than the other one, but adequate. He'd examined it boredly while locked up and restless between dark bouts of sulking. The Hyuga clearly felt that the cheaper cedar tubs were just _not good enough _for their house, even in a distant wing and a lower guest room. Sasuke's clan had not gone in for this kind of determined luxury and he wasn't sure if he liked it, it made him feel a bit uncomfortable. But the hot water and steam would relax her. It wasn't as if he was going to accomplish that himself.

"You too." she whispered, which was fine. He stripped off his own clothes along with the latest ridiculously ornate set of kimonos her _crazy family _had dressed her in. They treated her like a puppet, costumes and stage makeup. He shook his head. He got the bath going, got the towels out of the linen closet, nudged her to get in- got in after her. Steam rose all around them.

Hot water seemed to dissolve the margins of skin between them, made it feel like she was part of him, where her wet skin pressed into his. They both turned boiled pink with the heat, which was cute on her. It was a bit silly-looking on him, he thought. He examined his rapidly pinking hands, water dripping off the dark shadow of swollen veins under his _pink _skin. No two ways about it. Pink. He'd probably had more dignified moments.

Hinata seemed too out of it to notice. This was not surprising to him; he'd walked around in a daze too, as if beaten into unconsciousness by the deaths and only mechanically still on his feet, mindlessly walking. She didn't say anything, or even murmur softly as he touched her. Just her soft, slow breathing. He looked down and watched her eyelashes flicker as she blinked through the heavy air. He hadn't thought of her as a cryptic person. But when she didn't speak, it was as if entire parts of her were hidden. You couldn't get a sense of who she really was just from looking at her. He'd thought of her as open and friendly, but now he wondered if she was just too polite to not conceal her own reticence.

"You're too much like me." he muttered, against her ear. Tactlessly, he thought. He was resting his head gently against hers so he moved slightly, kissed the scalloped curve of her earlobe. He meant that it was a real misfortune for her, for anyone. She would have been better off being nothing like him.

She didn't agree. "...I wish I was more like you." she sighed. Her voice was almost rasped, as if she'd already talked too much, worn out her throat for the day. She didn't want to talk, she just wanted to be with him.

So got them comfortably arranged against the wooden lip of the tub and held her in his lap. She curled up into his arms and tucked her head under his chin, against his damp shoulder. Steam turned into hot droplets on her cheek, sliding off the ends of her hair, trickling off the edge of his jaw, striking his fingers and then hers, where her hand tangled up with his. She moved only very slightly. Her breathing was so submerged and deep that he couldn't feel it.

Silence was easier, always. She had pinned her hair up, but eventually it slid lose and fell down into the water. She listlessly pushed it back, maybe once or twice. Finally he just pulled the pins out, ran his own wet hands under the nape of her neck. The pins were onyx and silver-tipped. Condensation had formed on the metal. She took them and dropped them over the edge of the tub, one by one, onto the blue tiles. Hard little clicks as they struck and bounced. One rolled under the tub and out of sight and she didn't seem to care. He still remembered the massage techniques he'd lifted from her with the sharingan. She was tense, her back was like soldered iron.

He thought this was a good time to get his head on straight, now while he was feeling good. His mood could tilt at any moment, there would definitely be something coming along to piss him off shortly. Hinata was as he had been a few days after he'd come home to the bodies- shellshocked and too quiet. He'd walked around like an empty-eyed ghost, just like she was. So he needed to handle things for her, now. There was _not _room for two people to freak out at once in that.. whatever it was, that _relationship. _Not then. So he had to be clear.

He thought that his tactical function would be to tell her family to go to hell. Simple.

Hinata was too... conditioned, something, to do it herself. They'd done a real number on her since the retainers jumped him. But he thought it was likely that her father and her cousin had worked at her for years, torn apart her confidence. As he kneaded the stiffness out of her back, she seemed to sigh and want to talk after all. She talked in a distracted, quiet, broken apart kind of way. Talking from stress, talking the way people did when they were over-stimulated, he thought. Bits and pieces. She was talking about her father, and it was all her father being harsh with her, her father being impossible and demanding too much, her father having no time for her, her father slapping her to the dojo floor and standing over her, yelling.

But she thought all that was fine. She thought she _deserved _it.

He did the smart thing and kept his mouth shut. He listened. Telling her that her father had been harsh to the point of ridiculousness would... well. How would he like it if she were to point out that Itachi was a murderer? That Itachi wasn't trustworthy? That Itachi wasn't worth the love and the hatred, all the single-minded attention? How well would _he _take that?

So he said nothing. He kept his _opinion_ of Hyuga Hiashi to himself, let dead bastards lie. He rubbed her back in slow circles. She closed her eyes and rested her cheek against his chest. He saw the jutsu mark of her house, dark against the pale skin between her breasts, the ends of her long hair wet blue-black now, floating freely under the surface of the water.. "I wish he'd visit me." she said. Droplets of cooling water stirred from her as she spoke. She was talking about her father's ghost. "I think he's still here."

Sasuke thought that he'd have a few things to say to Hyuga Hiashi's ghost himself.

"I wonder if he approves..." she whispered. And then she wanted to hear about ghosts.

And he knew _all about _ghosts.

So he shrugged- a nervous gesture that somehow came out as aloof when he did it. It always came out wrong. Water dripped off his fingers as he ran a hand through his hair, another telling gesture of worry. He told her about the ghosts.

_The _ghosts.

"More then one." he said to her.

"How many?" her eyes were open now, she'd raised her head slightly to look up at him. Her eyes were a strange milky contrast to her flushed skin and the wet strands of hair that clung to her face.

"Three hundred and forty two." he said, without hesitation. Then, when she blinked and looked surprised by that, either the number or his precision, he added "I counted. And that's how many died."

"You see that many?" she was shaken out of her tired silence now. He wasn't sure if that was good or not. Maybe this would upset her too, talking about ghosts. Maybe they should talk about something else. And- he didn't _see _them exactly. He felt them. He heard them, whispering and talking, sometimes, snatches of words coming from other rooms and buildings as he walked by. He felt them, their hands on him. He felt their eyes on him. When he walked alone at night, he would hear their footsteps behind him. He'd train all day and stay away from his sleeping quarters in Otokagure, his apartment in the village. He used to come home from missions and sense that they were waiting for him behind the door.

"They can only really get me at night." he said. He remembered that while this was obvious to him, maybe other people didn't know how ghosts worked- and he should mention it. "They have more power then." He yawned, stretching his shoulders and arms carefully under her and under the press of dull pain from his newly re-swollen seal wound. He said that casually, as if he were discussing the weather. Because they _were _like the weather to him, something that was just there, a part of the world around him.

Hinata seemed distressed by this. "Are they angry?" she asked.

"Yes." he said, shrugging. Wasn't that obvious too?

"Do they want to hurt you?"

"Of course."

This was all so normal to him. After all, why _wouldn't _the ghosts be vengeful? He watched Hinata settle herself back against his chest, her hair damp and warm, clinging to his lower stomach and his ribs. The cut in his side was now a thin little line, and it didn't hurt at all when she traced it with one gentle finger. Her fingernails were still polished- useless artifice for a ninja, she'd break them in the next real training session she had. He watched her stare to the side, out through the plumes of steam, into the notched leaves of a small hybrid palm plant that shadowed them, placed on the long shelf built against the tub.

She was quiet for a moment and curled herself closer to him. Water rippled and splashed as he moved to hold her tighter- and that was reflex. He wondered if he wasn't so hopeless at this after all. Surely he still had some basic human connection, there were things that he would just _know, _he wouldn't always have to think and plan how to comfort her. The skin on her shoulders and the back of her arms, her shoulder blades, it all felt soft and yielding, like it would give just a little bit under his fingertips. He couldn't help stroking her, feeling her softness. She closed her eyes and her lips parted slightly. "There's..." her voice had lost focus, turned softer. "...things you can do to get rid of them. The priests can burn sagebrush, the way we do to chase out the evil spirits." The 'we' was her family. Their current obsession with burning things.

"I don't know if I want them to leave." he said.

He leaned back, letting the smooth polished lip of the tub support the back of his neck. He felt her pressed against him, her arms curled up between her body and his, her heavy wet hair falling over his chest and down his side, pooling in his groin and tickling him. He watched the steam rise into the wooden slats that made up the ceiling. Water droplets hung low, here and there from their edges. She fell silent. There wasn't anything to say.

He liked it that way. He needed to think, and he thought better when she was with him. The ghosts could fade out if she was in his arms, the anger lost it's thrill as well as it's bite. He watched the droplets hang, watched a few of them finally fall to strike the surface of the water around them. He thought about what he was going to do, his anticipation of planned events. Double-checking his logic and his resolve, he pictured it all. Sequenced it.

Allegiance with her clan- already his family in some ancient sense and already accomplished. Weather the ANBU, weather Naruto and Sakura and Kakashi- should Kakashi choose to appear and- _no, _Sasuke decided, Kakashi was not the sort to be _I told you so _about it. Kakashi would be the adult, if the three of them couldn't.

Forget the Four, forget Otokagure. Ignore Orochimaru. Orochimaru would _hate _that, so Sasuke had come around to thinking it was actually a fantastic idea. Let Orochimaru be the Hokage's problem if he wanted to kick up a fuss about it. Think of it as good ninjutsu- hiding and cheating on a contracted exchange was practically a holy sacrament for a shinobi. Let Orochimaru whine to the Fifth if he didn't like it.

Cooperate with interrogation. Plea bargain and sell Orochimaru out. Get reinstated back in the village- somehow. Argue that they needed a full-blooded sharingan user. Argue that his judgment had been impaired by the curse seal. Be patient and prove himself again. Put up with all that crap and somehow keep his temper. Keep from ruining it. Keep from turning tail and throwing himself back into the darkness. Keep his self-hatred in check, hold the line. Hold it together. Make it work. He'd done harder things before.

Go back to her. _Refuse _to bow to masochism and solitude and misery, no matter how comfortable and familiar. Go back to her house, accept her warmth and her companionship, her maybe-love, the maybe-relationship. Try to be with her and love her. Try not to _fuck it up. _Protect her from her family. Avoid killing her asshole of a cousin and wait a while before kicking his ass. Stop being an angry child and _grow up. _Try to be normal. Help her. Accept her help. Kill Itachi and be smart about the attack strategy this time.

Rebuild his clan, link it with hers.

"That's how I feel about my family." she said, stirring him out of his thoughts.

It had been several minutes in silence and he hadn't expected her to speak again. He didn't feel her move or draw breath, her voice just rippled out of the air, vivid and close. "It's difficult."

He looked down and thought about how much was hidden, how many bloody little bits of pain and her own recriminations were tucked neatly in that, those simple two words. "But I don't want them to leave." She was still pressed to him, almost in a fetal position, her fingertips wrinkled with the hot water, pressing into his chest now like she wanted to feel his heart, feel closer to him. "I don't want to leave _them." _she said.

It was her way of apologizing for the way her family was. The bullshit they'd put him through already. The bullshit still to come. Her refusal to give up on them, no matter what they did.

"We're too alike." he said, again. He sank a bit lower in the water, shifted her a bit higher in his arms. She rested her wet cheek against his. Water dripped. Heavy, wet humid silence and the slow hot rain of droplets falling from the ceiling. The ghosts couldn't get near him. They changed the subject after that.

----

It was a lot of ghosts. A multitude of them. She wondered if they all waited for him. If he felt them _all _breathing down his neck, like death was constantly holding him in it's shadow.

But she felt bad about asking, pestering him. He had told her many times, in words and gestures and actions, that she shouldn't feel that way, that she should ask him things freely. He cuddled her in his arms and tried his best with talking. She knew he struggled with it. And it was funny, ironic, that of all the things she thought she was inept with, being close to another person wasn't on the list.

If anything, she'd wanted it so much. People mostly seemed to push her away. Or- her father did. So everyone did, or may as well have. So when people tried to get close to her later, she hid from them. From Naruto and Sakura, she held them at arm's length. Why? Maybe she wasn't as good at this as she'd thought. Maybe she had a hand in her own loneliness, letting Naruto wrap his arms around her, but still constaly pushing him away. Why? Because it wasn't right? Because the council said no. But the council was just something she used to hide herself with. Why? She didn't know. She didn't feel like she had the energy to even try to think about it just then.

She found herself tallying a list in her mind. Almost a ceremonial chant. _I miss my teammates and I miss my sister and I miss my students and I miss Neji-niisan and I miss even Shikamaru with his cigarettes and I miss Naruto and I wish I could call Sakura and I wish I could open the gates. _A litany of wishes and longing. She felt bad for it, she should be happier that she had Sasuke.

She _was _happy. But she should be happier.

Love, after all, was meant to fix everything. That was what the love stories said. She felt dully betrayed that it didn't. She felt entirely unlike herself, disconnected from her old self, like she could veer into any dangerous mood at any moment. She could come apart at the seams. Sasuke's hands felt like something that was pushing her gently back together, closing up cracks and fissures. But underneath it was hollowness and worse, a kind of black, cold feeling that didn't frighten her... so much as make her feel raw, exposed. This was a part of her that was meant to stay down in the depths. It could fly to the surface at any moment. "I'm bad company right now." she said to him. Warning him.

"You feel like me, then." he said. He could be very no-nonsense and yet strangely warm at the same time. "You put up with me, didn't you?"

She stared numbly at his skin next to hers, the tautness of his chest, the spare darker crumple of one nipple. His hair was wet now from the steam, the longer bits of it around his face tickled her neck. He was such an efficient, focused, disciplined fighter, an unbelievable talent. She thought so... everyone else in the academy had thought so. He didn't think so. She thought he was too hard on himself, but at the same time, she understood it. She knew how that felt. She couldn't see her own skill either. It felt like indulgence of her own weakness to even acknowledge it. It was a bit disorienting, too, to be this close to him and feel him as another person, warm skin and a heartbeat, not an impossible virtuoso, someone so unapproachable. It was hard for her to believe, it was such a hard contrast. She was hopeless, after all. It was an engrained way of thinking for her. She could never be _anything _like him. It was hard to stop feeling that way.

Sasuke tried to engage her in conversation. In his own quiet way. She thought that she sort of knew him now, she was coming to be able to decipher his gestures and read between the lines of what he did say, start to get a feel for what he didn't. He wanted to talk about their plans for the next day, what would lie between his arrest by the ANBU and where they were at the moment. She couldn't focus. She nodded, but she couldn't keep up her end of the conversation at all. "I'm sorry." she whispered.

"We don't have to talk." he said.

But it _was _easier to talk with him. Easier then it was with anyone else. It made her feel guilty for not appreciating it more. He was trying so hard and she should... she couldn't think, or pull any kind of reasoning out of the restless clouds in her head. She used one of his techniques. She straightened and fastened her arms around his neck. He opened his eyes, he'd been leaning back, his hair spilling dark and wildly spiked over the white skin of his neck and shoulders. He looked at her in mild surprise, and a touch of interest, so she kissed his forehead, the tip of his nose. He made a soft questioning 'hmm?' sound, but she fastened her lips to his, His hands came up her back, wet with hot water, dripping heat all over her. She planned in the second or two of forethought for it to be a gentle kiss. Affectionate. Kisses in lieu of words, for when she couldn't find the words. But as he stroked her back and his lips parted under hers, she felt the breath rippling through him, the brush of his tongue against hers, she leaned in. She didn't think, and it was that lack of thinking that made her able to kiss him, with a kind of ferocity that she didn't see in herself, not outside of the orchestrated fury of the sixty four palms, the things she was _taught _to do. This came out of her, the darkest parts of her. He groaned softly, breathing harder between kisses, snatches of fire that flashed between them behind her closed eyes, then a long sigh of contentment as she got a good grip on his wet shoulders and kissed harder, deeper. She didn't know what she was trying to do. Melt into him, maybe. Forget herself.

She didn't plan it, but she kissed him and kissed him and ran her hands restlessly over his chest, rubbed her breasts against him until they were both panting and he was hard and arching under her, her nipples were stiff and tingling with the wet friction _Inexplicably disobedient, _the council had said. She couldn't tell what she felt anymore, she just wanted him.

He pulled her down, and she angled herself onto him. The hot water pressed in on her, making her feel full to bursting with him. He was hotter then usual. Maybe a bit bigger this time, hot water opened the blood vessels and blood flowed thickly. The heat of his flesh went high up inside her and she gasped, sucking in the steam, couldn't stand it, she had to move furiously. His hands gripped her hips, his head back and she wanted to drag the both under the water, drown with her lungs full of heat and her body full of him. His eyes were closed and she watched him breathing, hard and slow, his lips wet from her tongue and her impatience. His hands tightened on her hips. She was embarrassed at herself and all of this, but she couldn't stop.

She meant it to be gentle, loving sex but it ended up being wild, panting, and physical, water slopping out over the rim of the tub as they gasped and moved together. She thought distantly through the thick of it all that it was still awkward, they still weren't really relaxing, comfortable with one another; it was still a bit like touching a stranger. Or a strangely fond memory, half-forgotten. Romantic or not, she really didn't believe in destiny the way she should have. He turned her over and wanted to be gentle, hesitated, but she gasped for him to go faster, drive harder, feed the restless energies inside her. She felt her hands aching, white-knuckled and muscles tired, clenching his shoulders, his lower back, her fingers slipping, bursting with the feeling of him moving firmly inside her, rattling her heart, shaking the air out of her so she was lightheaded with it.

It wasn't the sort of thing she was supposed to do, have screaming wild sex in her father's house, on the eve of her father's funeral. The orgasm came before she could think clearly at all. And then she stung a bit, he was far inside and moving harder and deeper then before. The thin edge of his hissed breath was sudden cold on her wet cheek. She saw his eyes tightly shut, his face flushed and the tendons of his neck tightened and vanishing, resurfacing as he thrust hard- once, twice, and then he must have come, she was too hot and wet inside to feel it. But the deep creases that formed for a second around his eyes, the sharp hitch in his breath... She wasn't used to seeing him like that, unguarded. He opened his eyes and they were wet and black, almost reflective. He blinked, and held her gaze.

Maybe nothing needed to be said. She couldn't seem to get air into her lungs, not enough, the humidity made it slow and laborious. Her heart pressed and beat against the inside of her chest. He exhaled hard, his wet hair fell over her as he sagged onto his elbows and into the inside wall of the tub, pressing her back against it. His hand slipped- then caught- on the wet edge of the tub. She wondered what he felt at this moment. She wasn't sure what _she _felt.

Half the water was on the floor.

She was already embarrassed. She remembered screaming and moaning and her cheeks burned hard. She thought quickly, trying to guess if anyone would have been in this wing of the house, would the guards have left? Would they have stayed, just a bit out of sight, to keep an eye on him?

She hid her burning face under his arm as he peered out of the tub, sizing up the damage.

"I didn't..." she didn't mean that, she didn't mean to take that out on him, whatever it was. "I don't.." she didn't know what was wrong with her, why she was behaving this way. She couldn't seem to get a complete sentence out. "I'm sorry. I.. that wasn't directed at you." she whispered. "I wanted..." She wanted to be loving and kind to him, because there was this ache in her chest, gnawing at her to reach out and just love him, try to make him happy. Love as action, rather then a gauzy glamorous distant fantasy, decked out with a castle and a handsome stranger.. and all the trappings. Love as something between flesh and blood people, in imperfect times and in the midst of difficulties and stress. Imperfect and unable to solve her entire life for her. But better for it, somehow.

She shook her head, finally, giving up on making any sense. Her hair clung wetly to her shoulders.

"You can direct that at me anytime you like." he said. He stretched out, relaxed and nuzzling her. It reminded her of the lions she'd seen in a zoo once, in a faraway central city of another country. They lolled and stretched out their long springy backs, happy and satisfied. She must have lost the ability to keep her feelings off her face, her worry must have shown. Because he opened his eyes again and sat up. He shook the wet hair out of his face and tried to comfort her... in that way he had, soft hesitant touches and a searching look in his eyes. The questions, the absolute focus of his attention on her, both exhilarating and a bit frightening, unfamiliar to her to have anyone be so attentive and focused on her, as if he wanted her so much. Why else would he do this? It was real. She couldn't get her head around it, but it was real, he really might fall in love with her. She might fall in love with him. "I'm fine." she lied, badly. She tried to smile and failed. She buried her face in the wet hollow of his neck. Hiding and getting closer to him, trying to do both at once.

Sasuke took over. He was good at that. He thought they should go downstairs for dinner, and she agreed. It was nearing the right time, past time, but she hadn't eaten since midday. He gestured disinterestedly at a tray of rice balls and tea left in the bedroom. She was surprised that he'd volunteer to be around her family, but he shrugged and said that he was tired of cold food, it was still too cold in the house.

And it was. The power was supposedly back, but it came in patches and delays. The furnace was taking time to build up steam and suffuse the full house. She watched him get out of the tub, the long smooth muscles the moved under his skin. He kicked at the spilled water. "There are maids to clean this up?" he said, looking back to her. Naked and un-self conscious. It was different. It took her a moment to locate the change in his body language, the way he usually held himself, tense and- she shook her head. No. She had to.. she wasn't sure what she had to do exactly, but answering the question, not acting like a dazed idiot would be a start. She crumpled herself against the inside of the tub. She told him that servants would come to put the room back in order. She saw him, his penis all pink and calmed between his legs, satisfied. She might have giggled, just because it was silly of her to even look. But her mood was too heavy.

She watched him fasten a towel around his waist, and the way it hung low on his hips. Water droplets clung to the tight muscles in his lower stomach and the shadow of dark hair that just peeked up under the cotton fluff of the fabric. He held a larger towel open for her and she went to him. Moved into his arms as he wrapped it around her.

It should have made her happy, the way he was being so careful and gentle with her. She _was _happy. She just couldn't seem to act the way she should, there was a ragged hole right through her. She tried to explain to him and he said "I know." He knew how she felt. He carried her, towel and all, back to the futon in the bedroom. So her feet wouldn't get in the cold spilled water, he said. He sorted out her kimonos as she watched from the futon, twisting her toes anxiously in the rumpled sheets.

"Do you have to wear all.." he counted quickly, raising the arm he'd folded them over "..nine of these?" His eyebrow was up again. She shook her head. She put on the red under kimono, and then chose the black lotus-patterned over kimono from the set of eight. Sasuke fastened the obi, his hands lingering. She reached up and stroked his hair, his cheek. Her fingers brushed the softness of his lips, something she would never get used to, she thought, it was so strange on someone who seemed so invulnerable. He fastened his arms around the base of her back, and she pressed herself against him, feeling his heat and his affection, basking in both. They couldn't seep through the cold empty place inside her. They could only skirt the surface. But his kisses were gentle, soft touches to her cheeks and the line of her jaw. She was glad to have him here. She couldn't seem to get her feelings out, show him how much she loved him for this... for all of this, all this effort and intense attention.

She was supposed to understand this. For all she'd wanted it, and dreamed of it... But this was... it was 'love' as something felt in passing, a strong desire and a welling of deep affection. But she felt unqualified to feel anything, to understand what she felt accurately, what she _should _feel in response to anything. This love might be too ordinary, she thought.. too everyday, too much like the warmth she felt for her teammates. When she should be consumed with passion for him. Grief disconnected everything. Mostly herself- from herself.

And, she thought, catching sight of the water on the bathroom floor, passion wasn't even lacking.

Some other kind of love, something reassuring and deep and.. timeless, she wanted that, she _wanted _it to last forever, she wanted to finally be _wanted _by someone. Sasuke wanted her- he showed her, and he even _said _so. It was making her happy but she felt she should... She sighed, against him. She felt she should feel like the heroine in one of the romance novels she was _not _supposed to read, because they were trash. He father had said so. They were about things like.. strange foreign cowboys in desert towns and pirates that sailed ships and kidnapped noblewomen. They weren't anything like her own life, so it was so silly of her, so immature, so impossible for her to want it. Did she want it?

He wasn't the prince on the white horse, he was real. He was usually angry and he hated her cousin, it was a fact. He hated her entire family, she could feel it. It wasn't perfect, she wasn't swept away on waves of bliss. Her life wasn't transformed, she was still the same old Hinata, making slow but unremarkable progress, day to day. Unable to allow herself to see the change long-term. Unable, maybe, to allow herself to be happy. Maybe she'd push him away too, hold him at arm's length. It was _beyond _strange, unexpected, to think that someone like _him _could be vulnerable to her. That she could break his heart. She hadn't even thought that Uchiha Sasuke, the Uchiha Sasuke that she imagined when she only knew the space in the conversation where Naruto and Sakura stopped talking... she hadn't thought that person even _had _a heart. She hadn't understood their devotion... she worried about him leaving her and hurting her, because that's what she was told to worry about. But maybe she would hurt _him. _She wasn't all right, not really. She could pretend that things were all right, but that was just... that was just what she had been taught to do. Her noble clan's manners. That was what had helped her with her father, _pretending _it was all right, that things were fine... She needed to love him. Sasuke. She needed to love him _now, _fully and perfectly, she needed to be able to _do this _and be what he needed, help him. She couldn't get herself back together, that hole in her was as vast as a volcanic crag in mountain rock, a permanent scar on the landscape. She might hurt him, lost in her own pain and disconnection. How long _could _she keep her manners in place? How could she be sure?

She was breathing fast and panicking. Sasuke had noticed, she had missed that in the rush of it. He was holding her tightly, kissing her. Kissing her because he couldn't find the words either. She needed to love him for this, pay him back for this _now, _she needed to not betray him like her family had.

Sasuke didn't seem surprised by any of these violent lurches in her mood.

"I know how you feel." he said. He looked at her and she felt the sadness behind his eyes. Deep inside him, somewhere. The same hole that was inside her, now. Unhealed, over twelve years.

She breathed, forced herself to calm down. Sasuke stroked her hair, his fingers were still damp and rumpled from the water. He whispered to her. His voice whispering her name, and it burned through her slowly, making her heart quiver and waves of heat and weakness wash down over her knees. She knew that she couldn'tmake herself feel what she had to- to do what she needed, what _he _needed. She needed time to sort out what kind of love was what. She felt so inexperienced with it.. for all her dreaming. It didn't prepare her. Love was supposed to be _wonderful, _it was supposed to magically conjure up it's own happy ending. Love was a lot easier when it was happening to people in a book, she thought. She could close the book, any time she liked.

_Smarten up. _That voice that was in her head when she talked that way to herself, angry with her own softness- it was her father's.

"We should go." Sasuke said to her. The gentleness in his voice was never not a slow shock to her. "You'll feel better."

_I wish he'd visit me. _she thought. But she felt pressed out of the room, pushed on her way. Not by Sasuke, who was calm and patient with her. Something unforgiving in herself.

Downstairs, the furnace's heat was stronger. Her family had lit the white lanterns, to cast out the evil spirits who would be attracted by the death. For so many of her relatives in attendance, behind doors and in snatches of conversation, quiet dinner groups that sat in scattered tatami rooms together and lingered over hot sake, the house felt too quiet. Ghostly. She thought that she should remember some part of her manners and show Sasuke the parts of the main level formally. He listened. He steered her inexorably forward. Gentleness. She was _not _going to cry. She had cried enough, and for better reasons.

The servants put them in one of the cheerful little rooms on the south side of the house. The folding screens were placed to cover the blackness from the cold garden outside. Through the painted cranes on the silk, she saw the faint glow of bonfires and signal flames outside. Neji was there, and so was Hanabi.

"Hi, oneesan." she said, around a mouthful of rice. She spotted Sasuke and scowled. "Mean." she said. Neji lifted his head behind her and Hinata saw his elegant features crease into a sharp, narrow-eyed frown.

Her feelings mixed and she couldn't feel simply worried or simply pleased. It was a relief to see them both, and she felt herself warming up. She felt like she'd been missing an essential piece of herself, her life and the world around her, just from being away from them. She would have liked to hug them, but that was not something Hanabi would appreciate- "not in front of _people, _oneesan! Geez!"- and, of course, there would be no hugging with Neji.

But there was a problem. Because Sasuke spent the rest of the meal glaring. At Neji. Neji spent the entire meal, solidly, back to back, glaring at Sasuke.

Hanabi giggled, her eyes alight at the sudden awareness of all this silent, jagged antipathy. Hinata knew her sister would be _delighted _if there was a fight. She reached under the low table and tapped Hanabi's knee with two fingers. She shook her head discretely when Hanabi's alert white eyes flashed to look at her. "Aw." Hanabi mouthed, silently. Then she composed herself into a sweet, innocent little smile and went back to watching Sasuke and Neji glare daggers at one another. In the midst of that, Hinata felt she should try to make polite conversation.

Neji and Sasuke stayed quiet. Hinata nervously drank cup after cup of tea. Too fast, she burned her tongue. "How was your mission, Hanabi-chan?" she said.

"Boooring." Hanabi declared. "Boring! Choji-sensei didn't do the _thing." _She meant Akimichi Choji's family jutsu where he turned himself into a massive rolling ball and steamrolled his opponent. Hanabi and her teammates thought it was hilarious. "No fun." Hanabi said, flicking her wrist dramatically, in that theatrical way that made Hinata frown, displeased, though it was hard for her to articulate why.. Hanabi's eyes restlessly moved to Sasuke's face, then Neji's. Back and forth, as Hinata watched, her teacup frozen halfway between the table and her lips.

To ask Hanabi to stop feeding the tension would make a scene. Of course, it would be unthinkably impolite to address their behavior directly.

"Were the old farts mean to you?" Hanabi enquired, speculatively. "I bet the oldest fart was." Hanabi cast distinctions between which of the council elders was the biggest old fart. Hinata couldn't follow her reasons, they seemed to shift with the winds. "I bet the _old witch _was," Hanabi said, giggling. "That old witch is _so _mean, I hope she's next."

"Hanabi." Hinata scolded her, frowning.

"_Please, _oneesan." Hanabi continued, refusing to cooperate and now throwing herself into an imitation of those horrible disrespectful attitudes she saw on television. Her eyes tracked Hinata's, judging and calculating how far she could go, how much disobedience she could get away with. It was a game to her. Hinata shook her head curtly, and took her eyes away from her sister. The signal was that she would not participate, and she would not play the game. This was supposed to improve the behavior, according to the book on raising young teenagers that Sakura had given her. So far it wasn't working at all.

She heard her sister's giggle, Hanabi had seen the alarm on Hinata's face. And now, Hinata thought, her sister seemed a bit worse then usual, as if energized and filled with unstable currents of mood, picked up from the tense, strange atmosphere of the house. As if shaken by her own grief- she must just be doing it in a strange, oppositional, defiant thirteen year old way.

Hinata gathered her disapproval and corked it up. It was not the time. She could not spare this energy.

"I'm glad he's dead." Hanabi said alight with defiant glee-

-and the words went through Hinata like an arc welder's torch flame, white fire, she squeezed her eyes shut and for a moment, just tried to force herself to breathe. Don't react. _Breathe. _Sasuke's arm came around her, and she was pulled closer to his side, his hair brushed against her forehead, the warmth of his body heat settled against her. Neji's sharp intake of breath and then, low-voiced "You take your hands off her."

"Make me." Sasuke's voice was different, haughty and cold, a sharp little half-chuckle preceding the words, like Neji was so contemptible- and then she heard Neji set his teacup down hard.

"No," she whispered. She heard the rustle of Neji's linen pants and jacket as he got up.

"Sit down, you're not impressing anyone."

"Am I boring you, Uchiha?"

"You're embarrassing yourself."

"You're not going to be bored in a minute."

Their scornful voices circled. She could feel that tension between them spitting like cobra venom, like an arcing current of lighting. "No!" she said, opening her eyes. They both looked at her, instantly, Neji on his feet and Sasuke coolly regarding him, his arm slung around her shoulders as if it were casual, and it wasn't a direct provocation. They looked and even Hanabi's gaze flicked to her, but she couldn't stop. "No!" she was shouting, screaming. The word was ripping out of her, sharp and fast like the flying edge of a shuriken, ripping through the air. "No!" she was on her feet, slipping free of Sasuke who looked up at her, a kind of helpless astonishment dawning on his face.

In her peripheral vision she saw Neji's sharp eyes lock on her, concern and that same impossible barrier between them there, that wall of distance and anger that he held between them, she couldn't stand it. "No!" she was crying, but she felt the tears on her cheeks before it could register that she was. She stepped back from them. Hanabi stared, for once the lazy teenage disrespect off her face. Sasuke reached for her. "Hinata," he said, concerned.

"Hands off!" snapped Neji, throwing down his napkin.

"_You _leave her alone, you've upset her." Sasuke rounded on him, his voice shifting to absolute steel so fast, it made her dizzy. She couldn't stand this.

"Oneesan!" Hanabi called after her, like she didn't understand what was going on. Like something completely unexpected and new had happened. Like she didn't _love _it, the disorder and chaos of it, for once.

Hinata heard their voices- Sasuke taunting Neji, accusing him of the mess that had happened back at the chuunin exam, Neji angrily shouting back, she could almost feel the ripples of furious tense energy that bled out of the room behind her- and faded, as she tore down the hall and almost slipped on the freshly polished floors. She heard the whisper of Hanabi's swift feet over the tatami mats, but she moved into the warren of the back third of the house, through narrow paper hallways, twists and turns. Away from even the other members of her family, scattered languidly as they were, the constant quiet motion of the servants. Where was she going? She didn't know.

She was fine, she was _fine, _she told herself, the voice of her inner thoughts whirling around the words, going nowhere. She was _fine, _things were _fine, _everything was _fine, _Neji just hated Sasuke and Sasuke hated Neji and Sasuke hated her family and her family _hated _Sasuke and her father was gone and he _wouldn't _reappear, he wouldn't come to her, it was unfair and she ran blindly, tears blurring the disjoined snatches of corridors and paper doors. The blurs of candle flames tore past her. Incense glows prickled out their hidden orange claws, here and there, they seemed to circle too. But it was her who was running in circles. She sank dizzily to one knee, her hand slapping graceless over polished wood, scrabbling for balance.

The soft heat of candles brushed her wet cheek, and she blinked the tears from her eyes.

She was in the temple. Behind her, the heavy wooden doors stood ajar, she'd flown through them, tearing them open. The white shrouds hung to ward off the evil spirits hung lopsided.

One of her fingers stung, she'd torn a fingernail in her haste. She raised her head, not wanting to look further into the temple's cedar-walled sanctum. Not wanting to look, but she found she couldn't look anywhere else.

The coffin stood, dead and heavy, abandoned by the living. The candles burned around it. Meaninglessly, she thought. Her byakugan flashed upon the six gold coins placed in her father's limp hand. On his chest, on the angle of his dead heart, a black iron knife. More proof against bad luck and wispy insinuation. Her family was too hardheaded for the full act of faith. Her family's legends were just a handful of words to her. Death was an abrupt ending, and her father was completely dead.

She slowly got herself upright again. She made a clear decision, bright margins in thought, not to think too hard about this. Neji said that to her. _Don't think. Don't open that door in your own mind. _He meant the cold dark place in everyone where they put things that they couldn't handle thinking about, day to day. Not just death.. and who thought too hard about their death? She was going to die, everyone was. She didn't think about it, and in a way you _couldn't _think about it. It was too far away. It didn't seem real. _Don't. _Her memory of Neji's voice, his quick, clipped words. _Don't- you'll destroy what little peace you have. _He made that mistake himself. He thought.. and thought and thought, and couldn't let go of his father's murder, and it almost destroyed his own life. _Don't. _She rubbed inarticulately at her burning eyes and her wet nose. She rummaged in the obi for a tissue. She didn't have one. She hadn't packed one, hidden it, knowing she would need it later. She'd been too distracted. Unwilling to leave Sasuke's arms for a second.

She used her byakugan to peer down the dark hall behind her. She couldn't take her eyes off the coffin, it weighted her down... like the cast iron blocks they attached to water traps, to drag them to the ocean bottom, she thought. Inside was something that was not her father any longer. The byakugan could pierce too deeply if she wasn't careful, reveal muscles and strange gristly juts of bone, livid white jelly in the gaps of his spine and blue blood vessels under her father's safe, normal face. She couldn't stop herself. A dead corpse, she thought. She could see the start of decay. She squeezed her eyes shut, pressed the heels of her hands against them until ugly purple spots flashed before her.

She put her hands down by her side, because she was making a scene. She was being a bother.

There was no one around, and she still felt she was making a spectacle of herself.

_Why am I even here? _she thought, her shoulders tightening. Making things worse.. overreacting. Running away like that.. she shook her head, clumsily fast, wrong somehow... in the tense awkwardness of the gesture. _Why am I here? _She walked past the coffin. In the wrong direction. Deeper into the temple rooms. _Turn around, _she thought. She felt mostly apathy, bone-deep. That same sense of absolute futility, the shadow of what had taken Neji, his destructive obsession with his unchangeable destiny. Her own absolute mortality, that of her family, her father gone- and absolutely nothing she could do about it.

She was being ridiculous. Childish. She was a ninja. She was almost a jounin! She was.. she had to be.. she had been taught, trained to be comfortable with death. To work, sometimes, you had to think of yourself as already dead. To kill the people she had- three of them- she had to do that to herself. It was how soldiers thought, people at war. It was how you protected yourself. It ate you up otherwise.

So she should protect herself now.

She wondered where Sasuke was, he would have chased her. She knew him that well.

She had heard Neji's voice, their argument, she had heard a scuffle behind her. Maybe Neji had stopped him.

She wasn't sure if she wanted Sasuke to come to her or not.

To have him here with her, standing by the coffin, walking past it to get to her... wouldn't she feel his cynicism as an outrage, an insult to what was here, what she believed? What she _should _believe. Where was her belief now?

Her hands found the double doors, the storm windows were damp and the room was dark even with their wide glass panes. It was not yet eight and it was heavy and black outside. Not long past sundown yet, but the sky full of heavy clouds, purple like deep bruises. She opened the doors. The cold bite of the wind slapped her in the face, stingingly. Numbness, like before. Everything could only skim the surface. Nothing could get at this cold part of her. She stepped outside. The door rattled in the wind behind her. She didn't know where she was going. She was going nowhere, that made sense. That made as much sense as anything else did.

Dark skies overhead, cut by the darker ridged line of the roof. The chimneys from the woodstove network, the furnace, they gleamed tarnished tin-silver in the lurid dampened firelight. She looked to the west and couldn't see the glow of the village center at all, just a damp crumple of clouds, like the wet clumps of kleenex she had left everywhere- that almost stuck to her now, damp with her impossible, undignified grief. It took her a moment to realize that it was dizziness, again, shaking her from her knees before cresting over her. She reached blindly for the balcony railing. It's cold bit at her fingers. Suddenly there was a hand on her shoulder.

_Sasuke. _she thought, but it wasn't Sasuke, it was a larger, wider hand. It was a warm solid chest and thick grey woolen robes over pressed white linen, the clean soap scent and the strong arms of her-

No! she thought, but the thought drowned far away from her. The wide hands raised her face and his eyes were somehow different, not how he'd been in life. The curve of his smile reminded her of the edge of the horizon, for it's strange serenity. No heavy creases under his eyes now, no pinched look of harried impatience, none of his anger. Half-remembered faces behind him, glimpsed and fading away from her, warm in candlelight. His words, different somehow then she remembered,

Then a voice that was sharper, louder, different- she was used to this other kind of voice- so close to her. She startled but she couldn't move, her body was numb and heavy. "Hinata! Hinata...!" Sasuke. Panicked. _"Hinata!" _

Neji's cold voice, clenched in anger. "Stop it-"

"_Get away from her!" _panic, the sound of raw fear in Sasuke's. "_Don't you touch her!" _The sound of a hand being smacked away, the sharp crack of flesh.

Neji, exasperated. "You're hysterical. The great Uchiha Sasuke, screaming like a hysterical-"

_"Shut up! You did this to her!" _ The hard rattle and the shake of the balcony under her, a wet grunt of air rushing out of Neji, Sasuke must have shoved him against the railing, the thud of his body striking it. Sasuke's hands on the front of her kimono, pulling it apart and his fingers feeling frantically for her pulse.

Neji's voice was ragged with his labored breathing, when it came. His contempt was stinging and acidic, she would have flinched. She couldn't move. "Tell me again that you aren't crazy, Uchiha."

But it was Sasuke's breathing that she heard so close to her, finally slowing- as he realized that she was still alive.

"We're being very dramatic, aren't we boys?" That was Miya, and she sounded like she had the situation in hand. It was sometime later. Time wasn't working right. "Act your age. Both of you." There was a cold wetness, soft nubbles of a cloth on her forehead. Her head pounded slowly, long deep drumbeats.

"Your fault." she heard Neji's whisper, further away.

"Shut up." Sasuke's, just as furtive.

"Leave."

"You first. Asshole."

"Traitor."

_"Coward."_

"I can hear that," Miya said, her voice almost amused in it's sternness.

Hinata lay still and tried not to disturb her pounding head. Water flowed down the side of her forehead and soaked into her hair, against her neck. She tried to remember, to hold in her mind to grasp.. as if she'd forget, it would fade like a dream... the words. The words that _weren't, _because they had no sound. The change in her father. There was no language to attach to it. She tried to put together what he had said, put it into words.. when it wasn't words at all. It was feelings.

Or something close to that, something more fluid and quicksilvery. _There's no mistake _and _take care of the house _and _I understand now _and _Hinata-chan _said with more affection then he ever had in his voice before. Intimations of mistakes that he'd already forgiven himself for, mistakes that he'd forgiven in her so completely, _do your best _and _I know you will._

She tried to fasten it to some mnemonic, so that it would float, buoyed in her memory even when she lost consciousness fully. She did, almost immediately.

-----

Neji was lucky he still had all his teeth. Neji was lucky that his nose wasn't smashed into his face, the shards of bone driven up towards his brain, lucky he didn't have the top vertebrae under his skull shattered into dust, lucky he didn't have two black eyes, lucky he wouldn't be walking with a limp for the rest of his life. Lucky he walked away alive at all. The curses, the bad words, they didn't come close. Neji was- Sasuke found Hinata cold and turning blue, not breathing. Neji was lucky he still had his arrogant _face _in one piece to smirk with, all the bones under it still intact and in the right places, his beady little white eyes not pounded until they were punctured, as his eye sockets gave way. Lucky that he wasn't strung up in razorwire and flayed alive. Neji was _lucky _that Hinata gave a damn about him at all.

Sasuke actually didn't want to talk about what happened, he didn't want to even _think _about it.

The old woman's ninja girls and some of the same group of retainers intervened before he could slam Neji over the steel railing, shatter his spine over it.

_Too bad. _he thought, savagely. His fists clenched.

_Hysterical? _

That fucking asshole! That _fucking asshole! _That-

The old woman made him go train. The _fucking retainers _backed her up. They 'escorted' him to a Hyuga training yard in the middle of the house. Sasuke took it out on the bare wood, his own knuckles, the bones of his hands. He'd done this recently- too recently. He could only throw this kind of tantrum every so often, and let himself heal up between them. His body was there to absorb the fury of his emotions, which couldn't get _out _any other way. Other then killing- and killing had to be a disciplined thing. It was too soon. His hands felt hot with pain afterwards. They swelled.

"Aah, you keep doing this and you'll have arthritis when you're my age." the old woman scolded. She taped up his bruised fingers. She made him soak them in more strange-smelling herb potions first. He glared- and she didn't give a damn any more than the rest of them. It felt personal, somehow, when he'd fucking _trusted _her.

"You want me to lie to you?" she asked him, with a knowing smile that should have absolutely ignited his temper, sent it roaring through the ceiling. But instead, he felt tired of fury. And a bit embarrassed, besides. How long could her carry on like this, acting like a spoiled and petulant child? He was almost twenty. So he just shoved air out of his lungs, trying to calm down. "I'm not going to tell you you're right when you're not, dear." she said. Her hand patted his uninjured shoulder, she'd already had her way with the other one. He had to admit that it hurt less.

He put his head down to help with the square breathing, and also so he didn't have to look at her. Because he was still not very happy with her and it was something she should know.

Hinata was up in her room, so he went to stay there with her. She was out from exhaustion and she had a slight fever- that was why she had collapsed. But it was not serious. It was just standard stress and the effects of days of slow rundown, not enough eating, crying, grief taking it's physical toll. She would wake in a few hours. He must have slipped, triggered- she had been breathing. Shallowly. She must have been. Orochimaru still had genjutsu coils all through him. Timed explosives. He had said- _persuasion genjutsu. _And Orochimaru had replied- _close- _operant conditioning. Post-hypnotic suggestions, so really... and of those hidden genjutsu bombs could go off, shake his sense of reality, any time.

But he felt more like himself now. He paused outside her door, making sure.

And then- he checked to see if Neji was there.

Beating Neji into a pulp wouldn't solve anything, wouldn't get him closer to his goals, wouldn't make Hinata feel any better. And hurting her would make _him _feel worse. The pleasure of breaking Neji into bloody little pieces wouldn't make up for that. Neji was not there. There was one lamp burning by her bed. There was a ruffle of feathers- night birds outside her window, stirring the melting remnants of snow. It was warm enough that night for the melting and the dripping water to continue through the darkness, and permeate the wood and paper walls. But Neji's peculiar chakra was not there. The room was empty of all chakra and breath except that of Hinata herself.

So he went and sat by her futon. She lay in the center, on her back with the quilt pulled square and straight over her, up to her chin.

Since she was okay, he could brood again.

Or, that was, he couldn't _not _brood.

He _hated _that.. his skin crawled with the hatred and he didn't hate lightly. _Hated _having panic attacks in public.

Which is what it was, he told himself dully. He wasn't in the mood to mince words.

He knew because Orochimaru had given him the literature and he'd read it. Orochimaru had diagnosed him- battle fatigue. They used to call it soldier's heart, they called it something else now. Post-traumatic-something. He couldn't remember, he'd stopped reading the scrolls on it, he'd gotten too depressed to continue. Orochimaru had ruffled his hair, standing over him. _You're a lucky boy, I'm a licensed trauma counselor. _Orochimaru said, sweetness and little shoots of malice in his voice. _Among my many, many other glorious achievements. Why don't you tell me all about it. Tell me, how do you _feel? Sasuke clamped down on his throat, concentrating on not being sick, not all over Hinata's pretty indigo print quilt, the quiet serenity of her bedroom. He calculated the steps to the bathroom in the hall, how soon he'd have to get up as soon he knew for sure he was going to throw up.

He usually would throw toxic little curses at the memories, try to blister Orochimaru out of his head with the words. But this time, he just slowly rested his head back against his hands, where he'd folded them carelessly over the edge of her futon. It was starting to feel useless. Worse than useless. Orochimaru loved his hatred, loved it because it was passionate and Orochimaru wanted to shatter the stoic mask Sasuke tried to hold between them. Hating Orochimaru just fed him, like the bloodsucker he was, the maggot- Sasuke paused, breathed. Square breaths. Got himself back under control. No point to it, to any of these thoughts. Hating Orochimaru was useless because it just gave Orochimaru what he wanted.

That was probably what Itachi wanted, too.

_You haven't destroyed me yet. _Sasuke thought. He closed his eyes for a moment.

_Oh? _Orochimaru didn't even have to be there for Sasuke to picture his reaction. _I think he's beaten you, Sasuke-kun. Don't you agree, Kabuto-kun? _Orochimaru's chorus of crawling toadies. Sasuke got up to splash some water on his face, get out of this train of thought.

Thoughts followed him, walking like the ghosts in his wake. Sakura, white-faced and her eyes almost gleaming, bright as gemstones with sharp daylight caught in the facets. Caught in a subterranean shaft of white daylight. Dust and blood smeared across her face, holding one scuffed black fist up to him, speaking in a growl that seemed so unlike her, furious with him. _Hurt yourself- hurt yourself if you're so determined to do it! But don't you _ever _hurt him! _She meant Naruto.

He made himself be cold about it. Wonder why she was standing between Naruto and himself, forget to wonder what had changed, forget to think about what she said.

He laughed, tonelessly. It was just a brief, ragged half-snort. Stupid of her, saying that. He'd _already _hurt Naruto.

Bravado, he thought.

And behind it, guilt. Crushing.

Fucking Naruto would be here in his face, anyway. Stupid to feel guilty. Stupid of him. He rubbed his eyes. Couldn't stop himself from thinking.

Their little reunion. He was venomous already about it and it shouldn't have surprised him. Bound with blood to poisonous snakes... bound to be cruel to them, to maybe _really _end it this time. One way or another, he thought that it felt like an ending to him, already, this would be a line that could never be uncrossed. It would happen, whether he liked it or not.

It was going to be ugly, he could feel it. He had to stop thinking and casting around for ways to avoid it.

He heard movement in the bedroom behind him as he leaned over the sink. He shut off the faucet. When he slipped back to the doorway, he saw one of those ninja-girls walking across the room.

"Music." she said, when he came in and gave her a reproachful look. These girls- or this one, anyway- were always cheerful in a slightly wise, joking way and it annoyed him. He crossed his arms. "It helps." the girl said, shrugging off his glare. "It helps people wake up."

"She'll wake up anyway." he pointed out as the girl knelt and sorted through a box of cassettes in Hinata's lower bookshelf.

"This'll make her feel better when she does."

A band he didn't much like and was surprised Hinata liked, honestly. _-died in the church and was buried along with her name- _ Actually _wait- _he knew this song and he fucking _hated _it. This was going to make her feel better, a depressing song like this? _-wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave- _ He slipped back into the hall, he didn't need this aggravation. The sound fell to a murmur as he turned the corner, absorbed by the worked paper hull of the house.

And in it's place, the hushed distant sound, the mechanical lungs of the furnace, it's metal grates and it's slow creep of heat.

The house was dark, like the darkness outside was heavy and no light could get through it. He stopped at a window in the solarium rooms on the east side of the wing- and saw that it was just fog, from the looks of the blazing firepits on the grounds below, and the way the flames and their light it faded out before it hit the evergreens in the gardens beyond. Different, but it reminded him of the way the house had been just before the ice storm began, when freezing rain had pounded at the storm windows and servants scurried on floors above and beneath him, locking window frames and pulling heavy curtains. The rain was gone but the house was full of whispers now. The empty wing seemed to stretch on forever behind him, like a spatial genjutsu. He could walk around in circles, see no one. Only a little of the fire's glow could make it up through the fog, there was only a small golden glitter of it on the bottom facet of the windowpane. Even the cats weren't around- hiding, he thought. The furnace shifted through the house, switched on and breathed hard through steel vents at his bare toes. He shivered.

He knew what he wanted.

He wanted to be back in Hinata's room, to get into bed with her, to wrap her up in his arms. To just lie with her, and feel that she was alive. It wouldn't have to be sexual, just the sheer pleasure of _not _sleeping alone for a change. The heat and presence of another person. He had starved himself of it forever, decided that he didn't need it. And- that would make him strong. He who could stand alone, need _no one, _attract the same kind of attention for it that he'd always disliked but fed on- refuse to accept any of it.

Affection or closeness. He wasn't ready to take it from Naruto or Sakura. He needed time- and he got close. Orochimaru ended it. Before that, he pushed it away himself in the first brutal beatdown of grief. And by the time maybe he was ready to be more reasonable about it.. well, by then he'd formed his iron definitions of strength and power. There was to be no room for deviation on any part of them, they had to be followed to the letter. To do otherwise would be to admit to weakness, admit to being _exactly _what Itachi had said. He couldn't allow that. He couldn't _afford _it, to be exact. He stood alone. A person alone had to depend only on themselves. No mistakes could be made- ever.

So, he thought that- given his track record- he ought to have refused to allow himself anything of the sort. No warmth, no cuddling with her. Only his hard precepts of strength. He paused and walked down the line of solarium windows. He stepped carefully around the heavy brass urns, none of them were filled with potted plants, not this time of year. He saw the eerie green speckle-glow under one of them, turned on it's side. A cat, and it's silted eye. He had grown up with them, and knew their ways. If this one wanted company, it would come out by itself.

He thought about her. His eyes had lingered on her soft hair and the gleam of even the dim incandescent lamp playing in it. Almost purple against the deep indigo dye of her bed sheets. Her cheek looking soft and by then, with a bit of color back in it, reassuringly alive. He should have just gone to bed with her. He should have _refused, _decided to deny himself that tiny bit of comfort- just because. The paradox of pain was that it had a little thrill attached to it. He knew that- from experience, the paradox of depression was that he found it too _depressing _to study at any kind of length. He had to make guesses. He probably wouldn't allow himself this, his mood was too strange tonight. It would be right in line with the rest of his behavior to date, wouldn't it?

Well, it turned out that some of Hinata's crazy relatives were in the mood to discuss just that. His _behavior. _

Their words, not his.

There was a flurry of servants outside the solarium's open doors. They made a racket, so even the slowest student in his old academy class could have heard them coming. It amused him to think that actually, the slowest student was Naruto. Even Naruto would have perked up an ear.

The three of them were not ninjas, they were too unguarded on their feet, and too loud with their chatter besides. Sasuke watched their shadowplay of hands from behind the paper walls before one stuck his head in the room. "Uchiha Sasuke-san?" It was a young man, maybe five years older then he was himself. A manner that reminded him of the civil servants, their complete lack of training. It annoyed him, somehow, to have them address him by name.

So he turned his back on them and walked to the faint golden glow at the bank of windows. After a moment, he decided to not respond either.

The messenger plowed ahead. "Hyuga Yasuo-sama will see you now."

Sasuke scowled, and caught the glimmer of it in the window. The half-light made faint reflections on the glass. He didn't recall asking for a fucking _audience _with this 'Hyuga Yasuo', whoever he was. He considered not turning around, and he heard the shuffle of the two others in the hall. All three of them would be no problem, but they could call for retainers. The retainers were jounin, and they generally meant business. Sasuke could probably deal with them- given luck and timing that didn't allow them to swarm on him, given speed and adrenaline and the willingness to fight lethally if it came to that. But if he was going to plant his feet, refuse and force them to get rough- _well, _if he was going to do that, he might as well just walk out of this house _now. _Save himself the trouble of getting thrown out- pin-cushioned all over again- later.

So in the interests of getting the hell on with it, he went with the three of them. They were dressed as ridiculously as everyone else in the house, all the Hyuga strutting around in their ceremonial clothes, dripping with their wealth. The two guards outside Hinata's private wing looked him over with a mixture of boredom and dutiful focus. He felt like holding his hands out to them, showing them that he had no weapons. Then flipping them off. That would be fun. But- about that.

These Hyuga looked at him like he was nothing.

Worse than nothing, beneath nothing. It wasn't as if he was simply a normal villager, they seemed to have a lot of those on hand. There were the ninjas that made up the guard, and the hidden ninjas like the old woman, but there were also plenty of civilians around, working as staff or as administrative attendants to various pompous Hyuga family officials. The various Hyuga seemed to treat these villagers reasonably well. Their stiff little manners didn't seem to allow for any vulgar class awareness, that would be _so _déclassé. So it wasn't that they thought he was from a lesser social strata- which he was _not, _incidentally. It was that they seemed to feel he had fallen, betrayed something. They sneered, and it seemed personal to them.

Was it because of the massacre? Or maybe it was because of his defection from the village.

Still, who were _they _to judge? They terrorized Hinata! Her asshole of a cousin, and her raging fucking _bully _of a father- what kind of sick bastard yelled and screamed at a little girl? Even _he _wouldn't do that, and he was supposedly evil fucking _incarnate.. _the way some of these Hyuga went on about him.

So what it was, he concluded, was that the Hyuga were both monumentally self-important _and _gigantic hypocrites.

So they could all go to hell. Just like he was meant to tell them. He crossed his arms, following behind one messenger and flanked by the other two, pleased with that decision.

And yet, still...

It wasn't easy, to be here. To deal with this.

Not that it would, or should sway him, he thought. She was giving him the gift of time. And of resources. And of rest, peace, home and a family, all of that again. He would finally have something to fight Itachi with other than his fists and impotent rage.

And all around him, the Hyuga were whispering. They weren't all sleeping, not even at this late hour. They were observing funeral rites, and their drinking and quiet discussions burned long into the night. The servants slipped in and out of his path through the hushed network of half-lit paper hallways, long wooden matches in their hands to relight paper lanterns. The click of mahjong tiles and the heavy opium-like scent of the carved tobacco pipes was heady, subliminal, almost conjuring the dead. That was what this was for, this slow ritual. Sasuke stayed invulnerable. He was good at looking like he was, at least.

Panic attacks were fine when he was alone. But now, he was surrounded. So many Hyuga. And they were all watching. _That Uchiha boy. _They needed no excuse to look down on him, no slip in his perfect composure, no hard evidence. But he didn't want to give them the satisfaction. He assumed the posture of defense he'd used for Orochimaru and Kabuto, the complete expressionlessness, the locked down emotion, the pretense of serenity. The Hyuga looked him over, from behind teacups and newspapers, from the slow curl of scented tobacco smoke and from intersections of paper doors half-closed, their millions of little inter-clan conspiracies. White eyes looked him over like slow hands, feeling for pressure points. He looked back, glassily. He walked downstairs and the messengers followed. White eyes, lazy and focused, sharp and languid, all of them interested in some way for good or ill- followed his every step.

He was momentarily glad to be in a room with only one of them, when they took him to a large tatami room, wooden walls and typical inked wall scrolls. Cloudy half-light from the fires falling over one Hyuga. Only one. The messengers opened the paper door for him. Sasuke blinked in the change of light, and saw the single occupant more by his chakra shadow than anything else.

"Sit down, sit down." this person said. An old man from the sound of his voice. Grandfatherly, and trying just a bit too hard to be friendly, Sasuke thought. The sliding door was being shut behind him.

He sat before this person, squares of tatami between them.

His eyes adjusted quickly. He saw a typical old Hyuga man. He'd seen plenty of Hyuga around. They all wore their hair long, they favored old-style clothes and a particular set of muted sky colors. They all were fastidious, not a hair out of place, nails filed like a Mandarin merchant, he thought. He stuck out, clearly... with his typically unruly hair, his hands scarred and- at the moment- bruised and bandaged. His nails alternately cut deep to the quick or bitten to it.

"You look like a man who has little time for small talk." this Hyuga said. Sasuke didn't like his choice of words, it felt like flattery. These people didn't respect him and they didn't think of him as an adult.

So he said nothing.

The old man talked on, and Sasuke thought he could get a sense for him. He was a word-painter. That was Orochimaru's term. For himself. For a manipulator, Sasuke recognized the tactics.

The old man had servants bring tea. Sasuke hesitated before drinking. Poisoned? Drugged? He looked down at the greenish liquid, but it seemed like refusing to drink it would be a loss of face.

Because...

..the more these people said he was a criminal, the more they said he was a wild animal, the more they said his blood was mixed and muddied, the more he wanted to whip out his old manners, his old upbringing, and _show _them how wrong they were. He'd been raised as well as any of the children of this house.

So he hesitated before walking out, being rude, arranging his shoulders and the tilt of his head to communicate his cold disinterest. Rudeness would just be grist for these people and their fucking rumor mill- that was another thing the Hyuga could think about, the next time they started singing their own praises. This house was _full _of gossip. And he wasn't sure if he wanted to hear about _that Uchiha- and he was rude to the elders! _ Was it worth it? He liked his blood pressure where it was.

"You're a smart lad." Hyuga Yasuo said. He'd introduced himself, asked Sasuke a series of polite questions that were meaningless small talk regardless. Sasuke put down his cup, which seemed to just be normal tea. He didn't taste anything untoward. Now Hyuga Yasuo was coming to the point.

Sasuke was watching his eyes, now that he was accustomed to the dim lantern light of the room. . Eyes like the scales of a snake oil salesman, constantly weighing and calculating. Sasuke could almost see the wheels turning in his balding head, the way the old man had decided to approach this.

And the point was flattery. Sasuke kept his face composed and unemotional. But- not the glassy serenity either, he could assume that these Hyuga could see through that. He held on to his suspicions and listened. Hyuga Yasuo didn't much want to talk about anything of importance. He praised Sasuke's skill and his speed- he joked about the 'little incident' with Neji. Sasuke suppressed the urge to frown suspiciously, because there was no way the upper power structure of this house would find that little episode _amusing_. "That's impressive, evading the main house guard." Hyuga Yasuo said, with a slow, fluid chuckle. Sasuke hadn't evaded all of them, just the first four. The next twenty had grabbed him.

And as it went on, Sasuke decided that the real point of this was for Hyuga Yasuo to get a look at him, get a feel for how he could be pushed and persuaded. It may be a tactical mistake to put on his manners. Maybe he should push the other direction, be as rude as he could? That could be a way to throw Hyuga Yasuo off- and whomever was behind him, this house had even more conspiracies than gossips. But, that could be a way of bringing them too close to where his real weaknesses were located. Sasuke fought the urge to close his eyes and just listen to the man's voice, let sound magic paint it's own abstract rorschach blots in his own mind's eye. He could get a feel for the man's intentions, then.

But the problem with people like this was that sometimes, they didn't _have _intentions. Not clear ones. Not ones that made sense to Sasuke, who was- lets face it- not the most whimsical person, not the sort of person given to a lot of intensely creative and outlandish thinking. And a true, gifted liar knew no rules of boundaries, no limit of hyperbolic heights. It gave Sasuke a headache at the best of times.

So he left the meeting disoriented, sensory overload, from the sound magic trying to decipher the colors and insinuations that flew through Hyuga Yasuo's voice.

The messengers seemed to feel that he didn't know the layout of the house yet. They took him back, and as they did, he paused at the windows. Each in turn, here and there. The firepits burnt relentlessly, distorting the fog and the light balance of the night air. It was hard for Sasuke to tell what time it was, when usually he could make an accurate guess. There were also too many people awake, you gauged the tenor of the night air by the weight of sleepers breathing slowly throughout the house.

But the clocks in the Hyuga house worked slowly now, spun backwards, there was no direct order, the entire household was shuffled together for the funeral and the ceremonies. Sasuke turned away from wing that had closed behind him, as a messenger reached back to fasten the wooden doors shut. The sleepless Hyuga were shut behind it, he was momentarily out of their direct line of sight. Byakugan or not... and as he leaned on a cold windowsill, his bruised palm stinging with the weight of his body, he thought that maybe _that _was the point. Overload his sound magic. Set him before a skilled liar. Lies were complicated things, it took time and effort to unweave the web of sound in them and get at their hidden motives. But then he wondered if the old Hyuga had used genjutsu. Had the messengers? No, they weren't ninja. Ah- but maybe they only pretended to not be ninja. Maybe the tea really had been drugged. But if this house wanted to drug him, why didn't they have the guards do it? Poisoned needletip, do it in the scuffle. He'd never notice between the metal spurs on their wrists and gloves.

He'd never notice... but if the point was to control him, why let him join the clan? They must have given him that option, the place to put his bloody fingerprint into the clan roster, for a reason. Was it just because they thought they could control him like they controlled Hinata? Did they mean to appropriate the Uchiha clan's jutsu for themselves? They didn't seem to much care about it, and their library was full of sister techniques to almost all the Uchiha jutsu Sasuke knew, anyway. Did they just feel he couldn't do any harm to them? Or maybe... well, he didn't know, he couldn't tell. He needed more time to study them. And less to feel this paranoid. But maybe it was smart to feel that way. Maybe they wanted him to feel paranoid and _that _was their game. Maybe... well, he was getting nowhere with this line of thought.

Back in Hinata's room, and the hiss of silence moved around him as he walked in. He saw the reels of her tapedeck turning, playing endless yards of blank tape. He pushed the power switch. On her desk was the contract he'd signed- and they hadn't asked for it back yet. He couldn't see his fingerprint, that was buried in the coil of the scroll. He sat on the edge of Hinata's futon and wondered vaguely where Neji was and if he was being kept away. Or if he'd already come?

Maybe the Hyuga had meant to simply get him away from Hinata. He looked over at her, and she had not stirred. So much for the depressing song, he thought tiredly. He thought that he was too tired to really deal with things anyway. He would have trained far into the night, usually, slept only when he could no longer keep his eyes open without swaying on his feet. But that kind of masochistic punishment hadn't really appealed to him for a while, now. Not since the cottage... no, before that. The power outage. He yawned hard into his hands. He was always telling her to rest and yet he almost never took his own advice.

Hyuga Yasuo. Some person of importance, from the way the servants behaved. The honorific- Yasuo-_sama- _always a key clue in this house. Hinata's grandfather- assuming that wasn't a lie too. Though they would expect him to compare notes with Hinata, obviously. And the man's name: honesty. What a joke, this man was the least honest person Sasuke had ever seen!

He'd lied through the entire meeting, but maybe that wasn't worth getting angry about either. Sasuke closed her bedroom door. He was almost entirely undressed before he remembered- right, he was supposed to deny himself. Well, too late. He got into bed with her, tucked the covers securely around them. Hinata shifted against him, murmured in her dreams. Her warm hands seemed to clutch at the edge of the plain cotton sleep t shirt he wore. She didn't wake. They both woke up hours later. If cuddling with her weakened him, he didn't notice it happening.

-----

A cold morning. Sasuke was already awake. The furnace seemed still, so the power must still be intermittent. Sasuke sighed, somewhere close to her, but lost in the darkness. He shivered, lay back down with her. And then a moment later his arms moved around her. His cheek was cold against hers.

If there were dreams, she could only see the tail edge of them, like the ends of flight feathers on a retreating bird as it shot into the shrubs in the garden. She couldn't remember what day it was, and as she thought, she couldn't remember even when she had gone to bed. A sudden worry bloomed that she had missed the cremation- why hadn't the family woken her? "What..." she murmured. Her throat was dry and the words came out clumsily. "..time is it?" She wanted to say 'what happened', but Sasuke spoke and interrupted her before she could.

"Four." he said, his voice thick with sleep. "Or five. I think." She turned her head to look at her clock but she would have to turn on the lanterns to see it's numbers. Or it's hands, though sometimes starlight and the changing angle of the moon would make it's silver hands glitter in the dark. Not tonight. Or this morning. She thought that the house around her felt more like early morning than night. And there were no sounds of owls or their heavy wings outside. Sometimes they would come to roost under the wooden eaves above her window. They flew in the darkest part of the night.

"You collapsed of exhaustion." Sasuke said. "You were out for nine hours."

She tried to make that fit into her memory. She grasped for pieces. "...we went to dinner..." she said, almost to herself.

"Right. Your cousin ruined it."

She frowned, but thought.. of course, her memory would be muddled if she was already feeling faint by then. She felt okay now, she thought, if a bit cloudy and heavily slept. She couldn't remember what had happened, why she was here but-

Then she remembered.

"Could be a hallucination." Sasuke said when she told him. She knew she told him just to hear him say that.

"I know." she said.

His voice sounded strange to her, as if made different in the dark. Or maybe it was just the subject. She knew a bit about his family, they had discussed it. He said that the dead Uchiha all turned to free-floating hostility and malice. "Ghosts," he said, distantly. "but not of them. They look the same, but it's not really them anymore." she caught the flicker of his eye as he glanced at her over her shoulder.

That was true, she thought. She remembered her father's body, like a puppet with it's wooden back broken. Someone intangible was gone, and he was no longer there.

"I think only the living care about this at all." she whispered. "I... " She didn't think her father cared whether he was burnt on the day of the moon's fullness or the day of no moon at all, whether it was the day named for the sun or that for the moon or any other planet, did anyone care but the living? "I think I did just hallucinate." she finally said, damply. "I don't think he stayed with us. He's gone away." She meant _forever. _

"That's been my experience." he said. His voice was heavy and cold. "Lets talk about something else." There was no time, the attendants came to the door immediately after.

They sent Sasuke away. She heard later that he had been allowed back in the library. He was not at the funeral procession, where they placed her on a horse- seal blue. Like the color of bruised flesh blooming on her pale arm, storm clouds, she thought. She was not used to riding, but she did her best, heavy as she was in her thick formal funeral kimonos. Attendants from the stables south of the village corralled the horses. She dimly listened to them discuss the foolishness of the fires, how it would scare the horses, how they might bolt. She leaned her cheek against the wiry grey mane of the calm one that she rode. It whuffled at her. Animals were the only part of this funeral that made sense. The fire didn't comfort her. If _she _was to feel alive, rather then just something waiting to die and burn herself...

But she resolved to not upset herself, she needed to present a very careful face, now. At this moment, it was the time to honor her father, not break his rules. Even Hanabi was behaving. At least- Hinata had yet to catch sight of any disasters in progress. She scanned her assembled family, the crowd around the Buddhist priest at the wake, looking for black spikes among pressed, plaited shiny Hyuga hair. She knew he would not be there, it would be in his character to avoid it. He disliked spectacle. She closed her eyes.

She felt distant from herself again. Disconnected. She had just woken, and had no time to reorient herself to the world before the house shut itself in around her, and the slow circle of meetings and ceremonies began all over again. These ones were more crucial than any other. She struggled to meditate properly in the rings of candlelight and the painted lanterns. Her eyes kept going to the altar and the little tealights lit there amidst small pots of scented oil sacrificed to the little traveler god, a laughing fired clay buddha. The innate absurdity of death, she thought. That was why the buddha laughed. This little statue was the story of the buddha who had been a monk, resolved that he would not become a buddha until all three hells were emptied. This was the god who would watch over her father now. She had said that she hated him. To hate someone was to wish hell upon them, wasn't it? She closed that door in her own mind. _Don't. _Neji was right. She tried not to think too hard.

But maybe... like her father in her hallucination- she hesitated before allowing herself to believe- maybe there was laughing on the other side. Maybe there was transcendence of things that just could not overcome in life. She hoped so. She wished he was still here, with her. Sasuke seemed to doubt the afterlife. He said that there was nothing but vicious shadows. Mocking the believers. He made a case for the innate cruelty of nature- or started to. He seemed to catch the look in her eyes and immediately veered to another topic. When the servants came around with the first tray of sake, she gratefully accepted a cup. There would be many others after it. The house drank on the day of the fire, opened their senses to dream, so that the spirits could come through. That was the reason. She was grateful for the ready excuse to drink, she was tired of thinking.

The sun set, slow and growing later. This was an auspicious time for death, because tonight was the night of the equinox. The only luckier day for her family and it's solar magic would be the winter solstice, when the sun slowly began to return. At the fire circle, finally she stood in the crowd, surrounded. On her side, council attendants in black and bright red embroidered flames. On her other side, her great aunt, straight as the hot poker in her hand, dressed as formally as the imperial family's empress. Hinata moved only her eyes, she couldn't compromise her perfect posture, not at this moment of ceremony. She saw the iron tip of the poker glowing red hot from the fire. The heat washed over her, ten feet from the bonfires. She saw the garden staff carrying in the small jars of oil, and because the jutsus had not yet been cast, she could smell the flaxseed oil, and behind it the sharp dirty tang of gasoline and, in the distance beyond that, the kerosene soaked into the coffin so that the body would burn slowly and the bones would incinerate too.

Now that she felt her father had left- forever- it seemed like only a lot of empty posturing. She didn't think he would care, did an injured ninja care about the drops of blood they left on the battlefield? Did she care anymore? She saw Neji across the circle, his face outlined in candlelight. His eyes were downcast. She could see the way his eyelashes glistened just a bit in the light. Was he crying? It was hard to tell with him. His sadness could be invisible. It could be something she was used to seeing and didn't notice anymore, because it was always there. He was less than five paces from her but he might as well have been a stone buddha himself, carved high on a temple wall, for all she could ever get close to him. They might have been friends, but the clan kept them apart. When she was young she did not understand the clan and she did not- could not- understand Neji's anger, his dead father, why it should have anything to do with her.

But it was some time before she would have to take the torch. She saw the ring of them standing, driven into the ground unlit. The bonfire pit itself spat wild hails of orange sparks into the black night sky, haloing the crowd of her family around her. It was strange light, a strange feel to the cold air and the drift of smoke and heat from the fires, it made these people she knew in daylight seem like ghosts, or wandering spirits. It smudged and burned at the flow of time, confused it. She was meant to look at these fires and feel immortal. Instead she prefigured her own funeral pyre, her own crimes yet to be committed. Was there anything she could do? Neji talked of destiny, and of fate and- _no, _she thought. She had another cup of sake.

It felt like swallowing steam, her body bunched and shivered, delighted at the heat. She looked up and saw the strange ghost whiteness of low hanging clouds. It might snow again, the wind stung with sharp glimmers of ice when it cut here and there, washing over her bare face. Her fingers ached with the cold, even when she held them over the fire, and they turned dark against the flames. The heat became too unbearable and she had to step back. It was a coldness deep inside her. Firelight turned thickets of Hyuga eyes soft yellow, like wan candle flames. The tealights were everywhere. Sasuke found her when she had withdrawn to the garden treeline at the edge of the party. He sat down on the stone garden bench beside her. She didn't look up and he nudged her gently with his elbow.

"One of them's blue, I have no idea what it is." he said. His voice was soft, like the tiny tealight flames were soft. Warm and hushed. "The other one is orange, I think. But they've put spices in it." She smelled cloves, and alcohol, and caramelized fruit. She looked up and the candlelight glittered in two glasses in either of his hands, drinks from the trays circulated endlessly through the crowd. He had brought two of the fluted cocktail glasses. "I didn't know which one you'd like better," he explained. So she unfastened her arms from the tight way she'd folded them in against her empty stomach.

"Did they say what it was?" she asked. She wasn't sure why, she didn't really care at this moment. Maybe to try to make conversation, and cover her own creeping anxiety, try to feel together and normal.

He shrugged. "Spirits, I think. That one's probably Bombay Sapphire, I saw them adding the dye. Your family is crazy if they throw money around like this." He shook his head. The flickering warm light made his hair and his dark formal clothes into warm, flat blacks. There was a ghostly white insignia at his lapel, a circle of three fans. "Everyone's going to be drunk by ten." he continued, his voice close by her ear, she could feel the heat of his skin. "I think you sister already is." he muttered.

"No one cares tonight." she said, very softly.

"Even the children?" he said, and the light picked out the elegant arch of his eyebrow. She balanced her drink carefully in her hands, her coordination was already wavering, and looked up at him. He held her under his warm arm, and the firelight pooled on his pale cheeks and outlined his high cheekbones, and the slightly harder plane of his nosebridge. "Here. Take the blue one." he handed it to her. She looked down and saw a small jewel cluster of pomegranate seeds, deep violet through the clear liquid blue. A jiggly reflection of flames played on the surface. Sasuke drank half of his in one long swallow beside her. "Least they can do.." he muttered. "These people make me need a drink anyway." She watched as he drank the rest, and the smooth marble color of his long throat as he swallowed. His hair turned midnight black in low firelight, so soft against her numbing fingers. It reminded her of the time they had spent by the fire in the tea cottage, the white linen of Neji's shirt next to his bare chest, the way he had turned to her and held out the kunai.

She remembered the glistening of vodka on his lips and wanting to rise and pull him down into her arms, flick the little droplets from his skin with the tip of her tongue. She hadn't dared then. Now, she nestled closer to him. He tasted like warm cinnamon and crème de menthe. The heat of the kiss couldn't warm her deeply enogh, and she shivered. He nudged her to drink, "It'll warm you up." he said. "I just watched your little sister drink two of those." he seemed almost amused by that. "What is she, twelve?"

"Thirteen." Hinata said, distractedly. "Almost fourteen, she's angry because father died so close to her birthday." She didn't know why she was telling him that. The glass rim was cold against her lips. The gin stung her throat, but she felt herself relax, just a bit. She tilted the shiny little red seeds back and forth in the last dregs of fluid.

"They're dancing." Sasuke said. Silence had fallen between them, and from downwind past the bare trees and into the fire circle came the echoes of the musicians hired for the night. Hinata lifted her head and peered past his shoulder. She rested her cheek on the warmth there, and his hand moved under her hair, cool against the nape of her neck. She heard the drums, and over it the eerie howl of flutes. Like ghost musicians, and their voices, she thought. It was the centrifugal force of the wind careening down from the cliffs, turning the entire sky over Konoha into an snow-lined chamber of echoes. The snow would fall soon, it's traces were in the cold, bitter winds. She hoped there would not be another blizzard. "We should dance." he said, again. It was his way of asking.

She knew the reason. It was to prove that they were not ashamed. She thought that her great aunt would be furious anyway, and the council would probably think it was a direct act of flouted responsibility. They would continue to hurl that word at her, _disobedient, _they would _never- _ever- ever _ever _approve! No matter what she did. She curled herself into his lap and later, after he went to bring her another drink and one for himself, she kissed him and drank from his warm mouth, felt full of his warm breath, as if he'd breathed soft gusts of fire right into her. Another drink on top of that and she wanted to dance with him. She wanted to stretch out the anticipation, the slow foreplay. She felt him through his pants with her cold hands, and he laughed, breathlessly. He was drunk and so was she. He was hard in the soft fabric and she felt herself hot and wet, ready for him. They were away from the fire circle and deep in stark shadows of bare cherry trees. His hand was in the folds of her kimono, stroking her nipple through two very thin silk underlayers. _Not at my father's funeral! _she thought, mortified. Excited. He took her into the fire's light, into the couples and little groups of children who danced together happily, their laughter floating on the swift winds.

They danced together, her whirled her around and the embroidered edge of her kimono took flight. The white silk flames ruffled in the wind and then sank under the darkness at her feet again. The noise of the crowd around them just went up and up and up, as her family got drunker, and the stories flowed with the spirits. This was the night to toast to her father, after all. Even a pressed-linen, buttoned down clan like hers seemed to need these wild nights of fire and drunken remembrance. She heard the laughter of her grandfather, and the raised voices of her little branch house second cousins as they ran gleefully around, chasing one another. The relaxed murmur of their parents, because no one would be told to behave and be quiet and be a proper stoic Hyuga, not tonight. At midnight, they brought her the torch.

She felt it's heat, coming through the crowd and the fire-lined, silhouetted figures parting before her. Her great aunt was a black thin shadow, her back to the source bonfire, and the family gathering behind her. Sasuke had ducked out of the light, unenthused even at his most uninhibited for this much crowd exposure.. when all the eyes of her family landed squarely on her. The torch was heavier then she expected, it's flames long and dangerously whipped by the wind. She worried about her coordination, her hair unbound and streaming around her in the icy currents of air. But Neji's cold hands were on hers, he was steadying her arm. When she caught her breath, he had stepped back into the blackness of the crowd around her. She walked, like a ghost, her head dizzy and light with the alcohol. If she'd known that this would be easy this way, she would have just gotten drunk sooner. The coffin lay on the stone pyre, as the family lined up along her slow procession. The fire trailed behind her. He was _dead, _he didn't care, she thought. She looked at the clean blond wood of the casket, the inked tags that would help it burn clean. The flaxseed oil had a pleasant scent, almost like cornfields in late summer. Neji was gone, her hand was steady. The torch fell, turned a firey half crescent. The fire roared alive and shot up in front of her.

The snow _had _begun, she just hadn't felt it in the whirl of the dance, the music, the crossdrafts of the bonfires. And now the charmed flame of the pyre ripped heat through the garden and the currents of it beat upon the stone facade of her house. She sat on the veranda, somewhere between drunken numbness and drunken relaxation. Jutsus channeled and swirled the heat, kept it from being unbearable, but transmitted a slight burning, she rubbed at her cheeks and her hands- unharmed, it was at least part genjutsu. Her seal ached with dull, heavy throbs.

Sasuke dozed beside her, half-lying in her lap. Her hair was sleek and warm under her fingers. She could tell that he'd had just about enough of her family. She guessed he didn't want to leave her here, and he didn't think he could pull her away either. He would wake when she whispered to him, or patted his head. "Mmm?" he murmured, drowsily. So she let him drift off. He was drunk enough to not feel the cold creep under the fire's heat; and he seemed so relaxed, even though it was just the alcohol, and the same for her- fake happiness. But it got her through the night, and the long process of the fire. It helped her through the picking of the bones, when she and Neji and Hanabi, when the main house knelt as one and gathered them with lacquered chopsticks. They gathered the ashes in burial urns. The fires fell slowly to embers, and under the whirling curtain of snow, somewhere, it was turning slowly to the first stabs of dawn. Ashes were in her eyes and under her fingernails, as she watched the priests seal and mark the urns. Sasuke somehow got her to bed, which was amazing. He was just as drunk as she was.

"I _do _understand." he whispered to her, sometime in-between the party and her bed. She was too far gone to remember what they were talking about or why. She just thought that she loved him- it wasn't even something she had to wonder about or worry or think through, it was just light that shone out of her. It was the simplest thing in the world, and she wondered later if she maybe did have pride of her own, and it was making this hard for her. Maybe it was that for both of them. She'd been.. what was the word? 'Drunk' didn't seem quite... enough. Wasted? Completely wasted. That would be what Naruto would have said- _haha, I'm sooo wasted right now! _She could hear his bright, happy voice in her mind so clearly, as if he was right beside her. The memory of him was that vivid. And she knew how he got too, when the sake bottle started to empty out and all three of them- him, Sakura and Hinata- were getting a bit silly. The way he slung his arms around the two of them, clumsy and happy. _I love you guys! I love you! _Did you really feel real love when you were.. well... _wasted?_

So she decided that she should reserve judgment. When she told Sasuke about it, he laughed- he said he didn't know that she _knew that word. _But she knew all these words, including all of the bad ones that he actually said. He seemed strangely taken aback by that. And- he agreed. "We decide this when we're sober." he said. And then he frowned. "What other words did Naruto teach you?"

But far before that, in the sudden ugliness of the morning, her head throbbed even harder than the seal. The council sat her in the brutal brightness of the sun. She imagined that their hands burned that way, white-hot, solar flares, as they burned through the inking of the jutsu. It hurt, but like a splinter being pulled out. She breathed through it, her hands clenched and interlaced behind her. She had learned this jutsu, seal-removal. She had a dangerous little quake of an idea. It reverberated slowly, even though she was far too scattered by the hangover to think clearly. It glimmered, like something dropped in deep waters. "That's done, then." her grandfather said, too loudly. Hinata winced. "Second order of business, then?"

But throughout, she struggled to stay upright, her head felt only loosely attached to her shoulders and somehow too heavy to be supported. Sasuke was still in bed, sleeping off his own hangover. She envied him. Hanabi's marmalade tabby cat had been curled up over his feet when the council insisted she get up. Her eyes felt like crumbles of dried out, formally soaked tissue paper. The meeting seemed to go on forever. It was only forty five minutes.

"Aah, get to bed." Miya said, bopping Hinata lightly on her shoulder this time, due to the current circumstances. "I already had to treat the boy for his headache, and he's always such a ray of sunshine in the morning, isn't he? Here, I've made stinging nettle tea for those rowdies in the lower branch house, it's still hot."

Hinata struggled to keep it down, and the three herbal pills Miya shook into her hand. She was glad there were no food smells in the kitchen, it was far away from both breakfast and the midday meal. "Bed, off with you." Miya said firmly. "Kimi-chan, take this very silly girl back to bed!" But when Miya said it- _silly girl- _the words glowed with rough affection. It was completely different from when her great aunt said it. But her great aunt could make her name sound hateful too. She could transform it into a vile curse, one that made Hinata's neck burn and made her want to hide her face. Kimiko wiped dishwater off her hands. Knives gleamed in the drying rack, flashing sunlight, and Hinata had to step into the shadow of the hall. Kimiko leaned her long, slender arm around Hinata's shoulders. "Come on, lets go see if Mr. Sunshine is awake." This was the new official kitchen staff nickname for Sasuke, and Hinata hoped he wouldn't find out about it. Kimiko winked. She was twenty one, engaged, and a jounin of four years standing.

It made Hinata strangely jealous. So irrational of her. The Hokage's office had tried to promote her to special jounin twice. She had refused. She didn't feel ready. She worried she would make mistakes and she would be unmasked as weak- and a great shame to her clan. The change she accomplished felt fragile to her, and worse- false. She sometimes wondered who she was kidding, she sometimes fell back into the same memories, because her father's angry voice was so indelible, stamped and imprinted deep into her now. Kimiko patted her shoulder, sensing her mood. "Is that cute Uchiha still in your bed?" she asked, nudging Hinata gently in the ribs. "I think he likes it there!"

Hinata couldn't laugh, it hurt her head too much, but Kimiko's giggle made her feel better. Warmer. It was the sound of normality, to her. Sasuke was still in her bed, asleep and breathing slow and heavily. She could only see the edge of his hand and three knuckles, the bandages here tinged with his blood and grayed with the ash. He'd pulled a pillow over his head. The cat had flounced off. Hinata carefully lay down beside him. Her headache was too volatile for her to jostle the pillows and unlock his arms, she just curled up and waited for the painkillers to start working.

They did not let her rest long. The sun was only at midday height, when she was summoned. Sasuke never woke, and she slipped out of the room so he at least could sleep in peace. She told herself she could spend the rest of the day in bed, after this. And also that being the clan leader meant responsibility, and responsibility meant fewer opportunities to sleep in. She felt that she was being pulled across the house by currents of force.

Now that the fire and the spirits were gone, the house was empty of those voices. There was no more murmuring darkness, no more eerie silence in pools of cold sunlight. Even the long burial candles had been extinguished, and she knew the temple's mausoleum would now stand empty. Out in the wide western gardens, the outdoor staff would be turning the ashes of the firepits into the frozen soil and snow. They would salt the earth too, she thought. Proof against evil spirits, and purity to restore the balance of the house. It was a strange chemical spiritual geography she didn't understand very well. And now, too, she felt something different. The servants, the branch house members, drowsy now, but awake, they all looked at her differently. She was numbly aware of it, her father gone. Her father burned away, which meant that it was finished, symbolically his life had fully ended. Now he was of the sky. She was of the earthly house. That made her the clan leader now, in something so much more than just the words and the law.

But it was not the full council when she arrived. She felt disoriented all over again, blindsided. Because with the strangeness that had endured for so long, she was not ready for things to feel ordinary again. The sunlight that warmed the west side of the house and turned the polished wood floor blinding under her feet seemed like it could belong to any other late winter afternoon. She struggled to get a fix on herself, what she should do. She hadn't seen Neji since that long look at him, when he seemed to finally shed a spare, cold few tears, in the heat wash of the fire. Since the moment when he steadied her hand. She hadn't seen her sister either- because Hanabi had never gotten drunk at all before, and she was down for the count.

"It seems the lad's a bit..." her grandfather was pacing slowly, his fingers linked behind his back. He unlinked them and brought his hands in front of him. He turned them over, rubbing his gnarled fingers and beaten down knuckles- eighty years of Hyuga clan taijutsu, and he still practiced with the sunrise, like every other member of the house. Hinata could see that he was trying to be tactful. She saw him make a particular little grimace.

"He should be put in a cage like an animal." her great aunt said crossly. Hinata turned, saw her great aunt reach for her teacup. "If he can't control himself."

"The father couldn't either." her grandfather remarked, coming over to the mats and cushions where Hinata knelt opposite her great aunt. He eased his old legs under himself, his pale blue robes crumpling from their crisply starched lines as he did. Hinata watched it, dulling herself. Slowing her reactions.

Her aunt snorted, delicately. "Neither could their heir, and that was his brother. They're all just garbage now, their blood is filthy. It would be better if she took up with the buraku-"

"Now, Aoi-san," her grandfather said, exhaling slowly, as if to calm the situation.

Hinata concentrated hard on her hands, how they were folded.

Her great aunt sipped tea, her spine straight as an arrow, her hands now withered so that the delicate bones of her fingers now moved like spare, skeletal swan feathers.

"Let's not have trouble on the day after the fire, hmm?" her grandfather said mildly.

Hinata focused, and narrowed that focus. She watched her great aunt and how she tilted her head, how the ornate pins in her white hair clacked together. She watched the elegant face that old age and good breeding and propriety had inscribed on her great aunt- as calligraphic and perfect as the feather-shadows of emotion on Neji's silent face. "Remind me again why this one is better than the Kyuubi boy." her great aunt said.

"Better for us." Hinata heard her grandfather flick his lighter, knew she would smell the sickening sweetness of his tobacco pipe soon. She was glad that the nausea was gone. "We'll save face."

"Not much face."

"Drink your tea, Hinata-chan. It's all right."

"Their clan is demonic. You're being a _very _foolish girl."

"Ah, never mind... never mind. Let's not quarrel. Not on this day, hmm?"

"I'm sorry, obaa-sama." Hinata whispered. She breathed carefully, to control herself.

Her great aunt made a sound of prim disgust. Hinata could not bring herself to look up. "'Sorry', she says.." Her great aunt sounded tired now, weary of all of this. The sound of wooden hairpin ornaments clacking again, as her great aunt shook her head. "And that scene in the east wing!" Hinata felt her cheeks burst to flames, heat crawling up her neck. She'd hoped her great aunt wouldn't hear of that.

"They're young, Aoi-san." Her grandfather was trying to make peace.

"He may be a filthy animal, but that doesn't mean you have to get into the mud with him, Hinata." Her great aunt's voice was colder then usual. Hinata felt their eyes on her, drifting, like brilliant xenon searchlights, the ones that Neji told her about at the ANBU prison. She looked down at her tea and made herself drink it, sip by metronomic sip.

"Well..." her grandfather didn't seem to have much to say after that. "Well." he chuckled. "Our little Hinata-chan is growing up."

"The first mistake we made," her great aunt paused, contemplating the steam pouring from her teacup. "was allowing Hiashi-chan to-"

To what? Hinata thought, her thoughts racing behind her tight facade of self-control. To choose her as the clan heir after all?

"-marry _that woman, _that tramp from Amegakure, the children came out looking like a blue fish. It's a shame upon us."

"Well, I daresay Hinata-chan will have many suitors. We should wait a year?"

"You mean until this vulgar little display with the Uchiha delinquent is finished? We'll have married her off before the cherry blossoms fall."

Silence. Heavy. Full of tea scent and, to Hinata, little flashes of byakugan light. The chakra of an elder Hyuga turned to columns and angles of crystal, dazzlingly geometric and perfect. It was honed like a forming diamond over decades of byakugan, the eye changed your entire body behind it. Not just the motor nerves in your hand- parts of your consciousness, and the way you spoke and carried yourself, the way you thought.

"We let the spirits guide their heart, Aoi-san."

Her grandmother made a tired sound of disgust. "There's altogether too much heart around here. Someone should _think _for a change. I won't be alive forever. Look at Hanabi-chan, it's like their mother all over again."

"At least the clan won't lack for strong fighters."

"Neji-chan is _already _fighting with the Uchiha mongrel."

Her grandfather chuckled. "Young men have a lot of energy."

"Yes, well.. wild animals don't belong indoors." Her great aunt gestured with one ornately hennaed hand. "I suppose we're going to deal with the Hokage's office? Hinata-chan is too young to broker for us alone."

"We'll send council messengers with her. And Neji-chan as her second, he is her branch house attendant."

"Well, I don't want a scene in the house like there was in the temple yesterday, but I don't want it outside the house either. We can't have this discord in our public image." Hinata felt her great aunt's eyes heavy on her, weighing the words down. Like a warning, she thought. "Neji-chan will have to leave the Uchiha brat alone."

"That..." Hinata wet her lips nervously. There was a trace of green tea at the edge of her mouth but she felt inhibited from raising her hand to wipe it away. She was too nervous, and their gazes were too intense. Even sitting, relaxed, an elder byakugan user's eyes would almost glow like the sun behind thick wintry clouds. Lightning white, just before the full charge of the flash. She found it hard to look at directly, Hyuga eyes were a weapon- always. She looked at her small polished fingernails and the drop of clear gloss that had been put on each. The light flicked in it's gleam strangely. "That won't be necessary." She and Neji would not be taking Sasuke to the Hokage, after all. She had never planned on that.

The two elders exchanged and long and meaningful glance as she told them.

"His teammates." her grandfather mused thoughtfully.

"This is a decision about _me." _Hinata said to them, suddenly emphatic and white-knuckled in her haste to explain to them and make them understand. She almost spilled her tea- an unforgivable breach of etiquette. She felt the flush spreading down her cheeks and neck as she put her cup down. "I made it." she continued, pressing on, searching their eyes and trying to find a fingerhold. "It's not a Hyuga clan decision. It shouldn't be about the clan."

"They'll ask questions no matter what you say." her great aunt said.

"I'll tell them." Hinata said, still feeling flushed and now her heart was racing too. "No one will be arrested by the ANBU but me!"

"You silly, stupid girl.." her great aunt sighed. She toyed with the carved bone sundial netsuke on her obi. "Do you think we won't lose face for that, the leader of the Hyuga clan arrested in public? This is a delicate time for us."

"Well, at least our greatest rivals are gone." her grandfather said mildly. "Can you see the Aburame clan being a threat to us? Bugs are to be stepped on, eh Aoi-san?" Hinata thought- _Shino- _and quickly shut herself down into pure observation, all over again. She couldn't afford anger. She _needed _to think clearly.

"Or squished with the newspaper." her great aunt agreed, bluntly. "And those _Uchiha _bedevil us past their death. Bothering us with the problems they cause. In the form of their bastard son."

"At least the father is gone."

"Good riddance."

Hinata concentrated- saw the elegant slenderness of her great aunt's hands, their spotless white. She was a genjutsu specialist, her hands did not have the patina of scars and puckers that studded her grandfather's fingers. Hinata was like him, a taijutsu expert. She would have beaten hands like his, crackled and pocked like antique weapons. She lost herself in that thought. She couldn't get angry.

"...aaah, can't be helped, Aoi-san." her grandfather was saying. His battered fingers curled around his pipe. Two of his fingernails were gone entirely. "We can't risk our nerves, at our age. We all were worried at her birth, too. I remember."

"Well, so far the omen is correct, isn't it? Hinata, you leave us now."

Hinata obeyed, and through the sudden dimness away from the windows, her eyes burned by the sunlight, felt her way by the directional weave of tatami mats under her feet.

---------------

Hinata was not around when he woke.

It was just as well, he was pissed right off to be awake at all.

One of those _ninja girls _was in the room. He'd been too.. drunken, passed out, whatever, he hadn't noticed. He should have woken. In Orochimaru's lairs, where Orochimaru's favoritism made a gleaming neon target of him for any and all ambitious would-be assassins, Sasuke would have woken if anyone had so much as touched the door of his room. He sat up and glared at the ninja girl. He still couldn't remember which one was which. He really did mean to glare, but his eyes wouldn't open properly because they were attached to a throbbing hole of pain which was inexplicably right where his head should have been. He swayed and had to slam his hand down on the pillows behind him.

"Good morning, Uchiha-san." the ninja girl said. Her voice went through his head like a slowly driven railspike. A dull one. He growled and ran a careful hand over his aching eyelids. There was too much light in the room. What had happened..? Oh. He remembered. He remembered to about the fifth drink. Hinata and arms around him, the snow that struck their faces, a snatch of her soft giggle and the warmth of her skin in the cold darkness. Disjointed memories of fire and strange firelight playing off snowy blackness. Firelight pooling crazily in the bell of a brass player's instrument- and everything too loud and spinning around him. He felt the covers shift as if the ninja girl had put down a tray. When he got his eyes to open, he saw teacups and a small kettle. It tasted about as good as all of the other weird medicines the old woman foisted on him. Like the others, it worked.

Eventually.

A grinding hangover headache was good for one thing- he couldn't think.

When he felt like he could live without sleeping for roughly the next week, he got up and showered in Hinata's very flowery bathroom. He picked through her little bottles of scented floral shampoos and thought that- no- he had his limits. He did _not _want to spend the next twelve hours smelling of flowers. No. Even if Naruto _wasn't _around to tease him about it. His stomach rolled over slowly, reminding him that _smells _were currently things to avoid. She had soap, but it was not plain soap, it was _flower _soap.

Continuing to smell of alcohol and sweat and ashes was not an option. Was chamomile a flower? Chamomile sounded like a _plant _to him. And then he found a little green bottle of juniper essence- or something. He didn't know about this sort of thing. Juniper was a _tree, _so that was acceptable. He padded back to her room, damp and smelling of juniper berries or whatever it had been. He felt a bit better, since having to think about something ridiculous like _flowers _had kept him from thinking about the usual things that he tended to think about.

And he was able to maintain that until he found a small note on the tray. From the lawyers, a reminder to return the scroll to them for legal processing.

He looked up, to her desk. The scroll was there, sitting very calmly for something that should have fired Itachi's voice in his head, cursed him by implication for his disloyalty. Or if that didn't make sense, the two clans being legally alike- for his weakness then. His something, something bad- something he'd done wrong. He could always find a way to find fault with himself, explain away any particular good he'd done, make it disappear. He could _always _make himself miserable.

He picked it up, turned it over in his hands.

_The clan. _Itachi had said.

With contempt. Disgust twisting in his voice like Orochimaru's coils of black venom. _The clan, the clan. _ Orochimaru's influence? Orochimaru reaching out of his Akatsuki organization to scoop Itachi up, push him and twist him into something he was not, a killer, a _mass murderer-_

No. Sasuke thought.

The Itachi that stood before him in the dojo on the only night that mattered, the bodies of their parents at his feet, _that _was the real Itachi. The other Itachi, who paused on the veranda to say hello and to offer a rare cryptic half-smile, who never really had time but who still showed hints of warmth, chances and enough to sustain the absence of their father and his turned back- that was a fake Itachi. That was Itachi's fake fucking act of deception.

_The clan, the clan. _Itachi had mocked, his voice turning from a reedy calm to bright hard steeliness inside of a second. _Attachment to your name- _And the rest, that Sasuke could remember perfectly, even without having committed it to sharingan memory. The clan, the name, the rules. Itachi's biting scorn. But, without these things, without some sense of honor and duty, some guiding principle, what the hell were they? Ninjas? Contracted killers. Mercenaries. Whores, really, selling their lives for a few pieces of silver. A tool, like that kid and the huge Mist-nin with the massive sword. Or madmen, cheerful psychopaths like Suigetsu, yanking that sword from the earth. Without the clan, the name, the rules, he was just a killer. And so was Sasuke, and so was Itachi, and so was everyone else here.

Maybe it would be _funny _to try to tell the Hyuga family that. Just as they were gearing up for a long, pompous celebration of their own absolutely _monumental _importance.

And maybe Sasuke would have bothered to do so, if he believed Itachi himself.

He couldn't. It was his great failing. The clan, the rules, the name. If Itachi spat on the Uchiha clan then it would be Sasuke's duty to revive it- and to protect it.

Downstairs, in tatami rooms blessed and purified by visiting Buddhist priests from the forest temple, the Hyuga clan were doing the same. They were, of course, being insufferably self-important about it. Never mind that.

For once, he had a hand in his family's destiny. He wasn't too young or too unimportant, not anymore. Now he was the only one who _could _do this, fate had put it's hand on him. But maybe not for the reason he'd thought. Itachi would die- he had to die. That was clan justice. But it would not be _everything, _maybe, not anymore.

Sasuke was not a sentimental person, but he seriously considered pressing that scroll- a collection of paper and ink and blood and rules- taking it and pressing it to his own damaged, fucked up heart. His Uchiha blood, not worth nothing. On the contrary- worth the entire world to him. Worth it to his future children, and the clan that he would rebuild.

It was good that he was alone, that could have looked _very _embarrassing.

But it was _something. _

He made his earlier plans in a haze of blood, Itachi's bloody grafted memories. He'd thought- of course, he'd kill Itachi. He'd live for nothing else. He was twelve and he knew so little of the world or how it worked. He had no time- no patience for friends or for thinking, for life itself. At the cusp of awakening, finally, from that long nightmare...

...he'd stood in the deep green darkness of the Forest, and looked up at the distant glow of sun. He'd cursed his foolishness- but more then that, accepted it. He'd _understood. _Not the way he did now, but a glimmer. An opening of a new path. Orochimaru bit him shortly after. The nightmare smoothly shifted back into gear.

Maybe it could end now.

So, _grow up, _he told himself sternly.

And, therefore... turning himself in would be growing up? Consenting to life and living and making stupid mistakes with people- that would be it too? Facing Naruto and Sakura? _Really _facing them, not freezing them out, driving them away, or turning it into a fight so that no one could talk? He went to the old woman because while he didn't like her, _she _was an adult, so she would probably know.

"Everyone has to find out for themselves." she said.

The one time he _wanted _her to tell him what to do, and she wouldn't. He'd been in an actual _good mood, _too. He harrumphed at her- and she raised her eyes from the pot she was stirring to give him a vaguely reproachful look. She mostly didn't seem to take his fury very seriously. "There's nothing I can tell you." she said.

"I need guidance and you won't help me?" he complained, crossing his arms.

She sighed. He saw her look him over, sharp-eyed, take in the way he favored his uninjured arm, the irritation in his posture, the fact that he'd probably slept decently for the first time in weeks.

"It'll be a hassle," she said, turning to pick up a handful of spices from the counter. "dealing with the Hyuga clan. And with the village. But if you want to come home, it's worth it." She scattered the spices over the bubbling water. He watched the bubbles rise and burst for a moment. Steam was collecting on his skin just from being this close to the burners. He could feel the heat rolling off them. It was nice to be in a room that wasn't too cold for a change. Never mind that it was too hot.

After a moment, turning the thoughts over for last inspection, he said "If you know the clan is corrupt, why do _you _stay here?"

She snorted mildly. She held out her hand, not turning to look at him. "Get me the turmeric, dear. It's on the shelf."

He scowled, but she didn't seem to notice or care, so he got the jar she wanted from the collection of them, and handed it to her.

"All noble clans are like this." she said, with a mixture of vague amusement and resignation.

He knew that, but firstly- that wasn't what he was asking her. And secondly, he wasn't in the mood to talk about the assorted skeletons buried in the Uchiha clan.

She shrugged, her old thin shoulders crinkling the heavy work clothes she wore. "My great-grandfather worked for the Hyuga, my grandmother did, and my mother did too. We're a retainer family." she turned, and glanced at him, her eyes like small dark polished stones, "like the samurai clans who protected the Tokugawa shogunate. It's worth it to me for the same reason it's worth it to Hinata."

He merely scowled harder because he didn't like that answer, and in the scattered silence of bubbling soup and steam, she said "The village isn't perfect either. But we all swear loyalty to Konoha. It's better to stay and try to fix it than to run away. If you run away, you have nothing."

He was annoyed with her freshly for using the words 'run away', because it was _not true _about him. That is, it was too much truth and he didn't want to deal with the full brunt of it at the moment. He leaned against the countertop and assumed his familiar postures of hunched, clenched, aloof attitude. The old woman clearly had seen it all before, because she didn't so much as glance back his way.

"If I left because of Hinata's father," she added, thoughtfully. And then, another gesture of her open hand. "Basil, dear. On the right." He noticed that her spice rack was alphabetized, which made it easier. "..then who would be around to take care of Hinata-sama? And her sister Hanabi-chan, and Neji-san. They all would have no one to watch over them."

"It's not the same for me." he said, and knew he was quibbling. "_You _aren't disrespected."

"You aren't either." She held up her hand when he started to object. "Not by everyone. And it's not about you. There was a real fracas between the two clans twenty years ago, there's bad blood about that, but they don't disrespect _you. _And that's only one generation." He wasn't sure if he believed this, but she continued. "My granddaughters and their generation, the children... even most of the elders.. " she shook her head. "You don't see it yet. But there are people all over this house who lost friends when the village lost your clan. There are people here who knew both of your parents, your grandparents, the Uchiha elders... My husband was in the same genin team as your grandmother on your mother's side. It's only Hiashi-sama's former loyalists, the council... and the young people don't remember the clan well enough to care."

By then he couldn't hold the scowl. He didn't know if it was... well, he didn't think she was _lying, _but-

"Look, dear. I'm only a retainer so you might not believe me. But my family has served the Hyuga clan for generations, and I know it's character. The clan never stopped thinking of itself at the ancestral home of the Uchiha. There are people as late as four generations ago who thought the two clans were one and the same. This house has a lot of serious problems, and there is constant court intrigue." her eyes were dark, sharp, connected with his. He almost felt the need to look away- it was too much. He looked out the window. "But no one can say that this isn't your home." she said.

He didn't know what to say to her.

So maybe there was nothing to tear himself apart over anymore.

Photographers came to take pictures of the Hyuga clan. He ducked the hell out of that, of course. But he lingered up on the roof and watched. It was a milder day, the freak snowstorm had blown off. Now there was slush everywhere, sunlight, muddy chaos down below. He watched the photographers position Hinata and then her cousin beside her, her sister, then rank after rank of Hyuga, a huge sprawling family. Hidebound and full of themselves and exasperating, but still- a family. A house that could not be torn down. Even as he watched Hinata's little sister make monkey faces and ruin picture after picture, and Hinata kneel and try to reason with her, even though he knew how corrupt they were... he still felt that ache at the pit of his stomach. He watched, he couldn't take his eyes away from it. He couldn't join them, he didn't feel right about that. But he couldn't sneer at them either. He couldn't understand how Itachi could have taken something like this -and destroyed it. No matter how corrupt, no matter how many dirty skeletons in the closet, it didn't matter. How could anyone? He _couldn't _look away this time. He couldn't say he didn't want it.

"Here." he said, to the attendant who stood outside the room where the family lawyers were working. He would have said nothing at all, but somehow, the moment needed a marking, in sound magic. If only to prove to himself- yes, he had done this.

_No, _he was not going back on it.

To run now.. the Hyuga clan would have a personal stake in it. Orochimaru would have had difficulty extracting him from the protective circle of his own clan, and the Hyuga were bigger by more than three times over. They would have a vested interest in his arraignment and interrogation at the hands of the village. They would protect him from the Hokage, and that was Hinata's doing, _she _had orchestred this. She had made this happen. Not just a request for him to stay, but a place to go to, and to actually belong there. He knew _nothing _about love. It could not have meant less to him, when he stood on that dock, threw himself into the water, made his vow. But maybe it started, in a feeling just like this one. _She _had done this. To find her now, try to say something empty and route like 'thanks'? It wasn't enough.

He felt dizzy. He didn't know what to do with this strange, threatening, sheer _bizarre _feeling... of having options, of having a future. He wasn't sure if he could even find words to talk to Hinata about this, not sincerely, not in a way that wouldn't just be like reciting lines from a movie or from some idea of how _normal _people acted, and how normal people said thank you, and how normal people could even grasp this.

He had no idea how normal people lived with this.

He retreated to her room, in the relative privacy of her sequestered wing.

His eyes fell on her telephone.

They lived together now, didn't they? He was sure Hinata had mentioned that.

And there they were, the two of them. In one place, which was convenient. Under 'U'. He got their answering machine and-

-it lanced through him, laser-bright, the same stupid happy voice. The same stupid jokes. The same shimmering energy, the charisma- something in his chest squeezed. His face heated up because he was supposed to be invulnerable and to _not care, _especially about this.

It pissed him off, actually.

A beep.

"Naruto," he snapped. "Get over here."


	17. Illusionary

It was done and it couldn't be stopped now. Nothing could stop them, they would come.

Sasuke glared at the phone, annoyed that it was there at all. Enabling him in his complete inability to handle this.

So, they would come. He would have to _talk _to them. If he wanted to be a person again rather than an instrument of rage, he had to face them. Naruto blabbered endlessly about bonds, but the truth was closer to his heart, Sasuke thought. It was like Naruto held the last shards of his humanity, the _idiot. _ Like he picked them up and kept them safe, waiting for a day when Sasuke would realize he didn't want to mutilate himself into another Itachi after all, that he needed them again.

He sat in the pleasant silence of Hinata's room. Sun fell over him and warmed his cheeks and hands. He contemplated his freshly bandaged fingers and palms, considering it. The paradox was numbly interesting. Hinata. Friends. Comrades. Happiness and togetherness, but to have it would mean letting go of misery. Misery was safe and strangely warm, it was assured. Misery could be counted on to do exactly what he expected of it. There would be no surprises, no screaming fights. He knew exactly how misery worked. 

But if they were coming, he had to stop... thinking like that. Stop grasping at half-strategies, stop casting around for ways to avoid it. It wasn't as if they hadn't done this crap before. They chased, and he resisted. They reached for him- he slapped their hands. It would have been easier if he just didn't care about them at all, he could just return, and he could tell them in all honesty that he didn't want to spend any time with them. Thank you for their efforts, but as for their feelings? Sorry- but he just did _not_ feel the same way.

But that wasn't the way... and he'd even _told_ Naruto directly. Didn't Naruto get it? He had to draw his sword, push them away, escalate to the point of killing them _because _he cared. Because he couldn't kill this part of himself. Because he couldn't face it either. It was a mess because of it. Stupid _fucking _Naruto, couldn't leave well enough alone...

But you'd think that they'd give up someday, even an idiot like Naruto. The time before last, for instance, when Sasuke looked down on them and reached for the sky. _No, I'm through with Konoha. _It was an impersonal way to kill them, lightning from the clouds above. And an impersonal way of making the threat, he hadn't even used their names, they were just figments of Konoha, enemy-village, grounded electrical targets. He acted like he didn't even know them.

How many times could he act this way before they gave up on him? The indifferent mask didn't even fit all that well anymore, now that the whole mission had gone down in flames. He worried that they'd see through it this time, see all his squirmy insides rather than yet another cold promise to kill them both, an implication that he wouldn't care that much either. He worried they wouldn't, that this time it would be permanent. He'd tell them to go away and _they would._

So he didn't know what could be done. Naruto was just a timed explosive, something to kick like a nest of hornets- _make _Naruto make something happen, push it all into motion. Maybe he hoped that it would all sort out anyway when the dust cleared. Sasuke had no idea how to fix it himself.

Still, this was an improvement on being holed up in some moldering concrete bunker, listening to Orochimaru feed terrified mice to his python collection. Hinata's room was sunny and bright. Sasuke looked at her neatly shelved books, her pretty pots of dried flower bits, her photographs of happy Konoha ninjas, like herself. A Konoha eleven. That might have been twelve once. _I walk a different path now, _he'd told Sakura. A different path than her and Naruto. And there, in that book that Hinata had read the other night, there was a wedding photo. The two of them. All smiley. He told them to do that, he told them to forget him. Then they just up and _did _it? Since when had they listened to him? They'd married one another.

Forgotten about him? He felt angry that they had chased him at all. He wanted them to come and wanted to turn them away. _I'm not coming back to _you, _just to the village. _He could say something like that. Be a bastard to them. Would it matter? Would it make him feel better? Would it change anything or make this easier? There really wasn't anything he could say anyway.

So maybe it would be better to say nothing.

Hinata was first a misty presence down the hall, half-vanished in the sunlight. She smelled like tobacco and she looked miserable, which meant that her asshole relatives had their claws in her again. She was in the doorway, furnace currents scattering the ends of her hair, somehow before he expected her to be. She was still a reality that he was getting used to. The white eyes were the part that shocked him. Hyuga. It meant something now. A future, maybe. A way out. An impossible possibility- a lot of confused half-feelings that he couldn't paste words to. Better to say nothing. He had to say something. "I called them." he said.

He looked at her hands. Hyuga-hands, a good shot at his heart from this angle. He'd spent most of his ninjutsu career meticulously _not caring, _it was strange to see a lover and a killer at once, in the same person. And all at once, a person like him, close enough, another person. A paradox too, not being alone any longer, not even in the howling emptiness of his own head. _Another _person. He was staring and he saw that she was worried by it, something in his manner. Was it that obvious that he was nervous?

She didn't say 'who?', there was only one _them _in that tone of voice. There were a few varieties of _him. _A tone for Orochimaru, another for Itachi. "Oh." she said, softly. She had folded her hands in front of her. She was still wearing those... ridiculous kimonos that her family put her in. Painted up like a toy for them, or an elaborately dressed puppet. A ritual sacrifice.

Amazing to look at her and think that she probably knew what he was all about. She didn't buy that cool crap that the girls in Academy classes had. She probably would forgive the panic attacks and the nightmares. She wouldn't mind how deeply screwed up he was, she probably had already divined that about him. He'd told her _enough, _after all. She didn't need to know the bloodiest parts, but she knew enough.

"They're coming." he said, unnecessarily. He had to talk to them, so it was like he couldn't control his _own _mouth now. This was going to be worse than he'd thought! He felt like a jerk for just standing there in her room, as if he were backing her up in her doorway, out of her own house and... well. He didn't want to even bother with himself when he felt this way. "It's okay..." he muttered, trying to make it better. How had he gotten into this conversation in the first place? 

"...come in." he said. He came away from her bookshelves and took her by her long sleeves. He normally would have said nothing, but she wasn't talking- and _someone _had to, the silence was picking apart his nerves. Then he thought that maybe she would feel that he was shying away from touching her, so he took her wrists and pulled her into the room. She came with him, and it was _still _awkward. He put her in his arms. "It's okay." he said again. What he meant was 'don't feel awkward around me.' Feel comfortable with me. _You accept me, right? _Better to say nothing at all.

If this was all an elaborate game of Orochimaru's, he thought, this was a good trick. True genius. Look at this room and this well-intentioned and caring girl right there. It was exactly what he'd wanted, wasn't it? What he'd really wanted and refused to acknowledge? Here it was. Right here.

Hinata murmured something about Hyuga rules and seclusion. They could have guests now, which meant that _people _would be coming, which meant _telling people _and the upshot was that decisions would have to be made. Hinata was tired and he had a mind to just put her to bed, get her some food, and station himself by her door. He could snap at anyone who came near her until they went away. That was what she needed, time _away _from her asshole family. He could maybe try that affection thing again, he was getting better at it.

"We tell them." he said, to her unspoken question. What were they going to do, sneak around like ridiculous children? He didn't know why she was even asking, she was allegedly friends with both of _them- _didn't she know how _nosy _they were? 

She nodded, her eyes down. Something bluish smeared on her eyelids. She really looked a lot better without all that crap on her face. He'd get a wet cloth in a minute, he thought. For the moment, hugging was important. 

When she was there, and the cool smolder of her chakra was there, when her soft voice and her warmth was next to him, _then _this made sense. He could see himself with her. He could do it. It was just when she wasn't there, that was when he started to fall back into...

..well, that dark hole. They called depression the black dog. A dark pit. It was all pretty accurate, all these metaphors. Blackness.

"If you don't want to come back, I understand." she said. Her voice was a hollow shell. Stoic. As if she held herself sharply in place and used that to pull herself together tightly. Staples and bailing wire. It was her own nervousness and the jaggedness of that was apparent to him. She probably had her family telling her that _shit _again, about him and what a faithless piece of garbage he'd be, how she'd catch him with the chamber maids or something, as if he was just some fucking _animal, _some low-class trash-

Well, he needed to reserve his energy.

And snapping at _her _was pointless, it wasn't her fault that she was related to a bunch of gibbering pieces of shit.

"It's okay." he tried. He stroked her hair. He felt a bit like an idiot somehow, saying all these soft things. They were true, but he still felt dumb somehow. What, was he going to turn into some romantic poet, some silver-tongued minstrel or... well. Never mind. "I'm coming back." he said. "Okay?"

The light behind him glittered around her eyes and the edge of tears there. He said "I'm coming back here." Because that was the point, not the village or the legalities. His own iron composure lasted that long. But no longer. "And I meant it." he muttered, looking away and out of the room entirely. "I'm coming back and we're going to do this."

The sun was like flashes of gunpowder igniting, cordite smoke in the air, white fire like the sky was blazing behind black stone, the distant cliffs. The edge of rock spurs far away, the edge of the Fourth's carved head. 

"Okay..." she whispered. Her voice was high and thin. She was trying to get her hand free, so he loosened his arms. He watched her curl her small fingers and rub the skin around her eyes. Her makeup smeared. 

"I'll come back," he said, the words all messy and he didn't know where he was going with this. Should he just shut up? "I'll come back and we'll figure it out." The ANBU would put him back together and scrape all the snakes out of him. She'd need time to deal with her father's death and he couldn't take that pain for her. "We'll find out if it works or not."

-and if all this _love bullshit _was going to work out. It would be something he'd never done before, if it did. He knew he'd screw parts of it up, he'd make mistakes... Maybe just an illusion anyway, snowy nights and space heater darkness, the kind of retreat from reality that two people could create to lie to themselves. That kind of nonsense would wither fast in the hard light of day. It would survive or it would not.

He looked at her, and it seemed real. She was warm and alive in his arms. It was strange enough, supernatural almost, that he'd landed _here, _in her path. He could have just frozen to death. He could have just died in some distant miserable outpost, bled out on Orochimaru's filthy stone floors. He'd forgotten the Hyuga even existed, their blood tie, he never even _noticed _her at all, just a quiet cringing shadow of a girl. There were a lot of girls in his class. A lot of people in his face, trying for his attention one way or another. A lot of bad memories, in fact.

"Okay." she said. It was her steady voice. She must be telling herself that she would handle this. He knew all about that, he did it himself all the time. "Okay." she said. "Okay..."

--------------

Hinata had things she had to do. She had to get a hold of herself. She couldn't cry now. She walked up the stairs and back towards her bedroom without making any conscious decision to, her feet just moved. 

It was as if her great aunt had used the Fist and struck her between the eyes, and now she had no idea where she was or what she was doing. Automatically, she turned down the main halls and took the south stairway. Her room was her traditional sanctuary. Though, very soon she'd have to move out of it and into the chambers for the clan leader. These were her father's old rooms. Where many objects and chakra traces and dangerous memories of him lurked. 

She wondered vaguely if his ghost was there. Had she even seen _him _the first time around? There was no certainty.

And it turned out that Sasuke was in her room. He was hovering around rather than lying on her bed. She didn't know him _that _well, comparatively, but his body language instantly told her something was wrong.

He told her himself that he'd called Naruto and Sakura.

And that shook Hinata out of her daze, as if a hypnotist had snapped his fingers and forced her to wake. She'd had her own gauzy ideas of how the meeting with Sasuke's teammates would go. They would come to offer condolences along with everyone else. Somehow Hinata would tell them.

Sasuke shoved his hands into the deep pockets in his loose linen pants. His shoulders aligned into an iron cross of embarrassment. They were his friends, so she'd thought, but she dared not interfere, she knew that much. She knit her own fingers together unconsciously, like a small child told not to touch. And... she had her own teammates. Her own life. Didn't she? She looked at him through the half-shadow of her hair. She'd never not liked Sakura, but still she was alone while Naruto and Sakura were together. But Naruto and Sakura had a teammate-shaped hole punched through them. And now that lost teammate was here. Hers. Hers more than theirs? 

Sasuke shook his head, dismissive and impatient like restless licks of flame around his hands, his manner. _We'll tell them. _He said. He meant that they'd tell Sakura and Naruto the truth. 

Hinata went through the motions of nodding and agreeing, which was easy enough. She'd been nodding and agreeing with a lot of completely impossibly requests lately. This was just one more. She'd have to do it somehow. 

Having told her and held her, Sasuke turned and paced over to the window. He seemed more preoccupied than usual, and even angrier. But his anger was beyond her, it belonged to his own secrets and his own team now. Hinata pulled out the chair and sat down heavily at her desk. She had to do this, so she had to think- she hadn't done anything wrong. She wasn't _really _stealing something from them. People weren't... things you owned, and there was no ownership in just meeting a person and liking them. She was their friend, they could reconcile their strange asymmetrical relationships with Sasuke in the centre. The cyan shadow on her eyes came off on her fingers in a messy blue smear. She didn't dare look into the mirror either. She'd rather not know how bad she looked. 

Momoe would send someone to fix her hair and face before the well-wishers began to arrive.

"That fucking idiot." Sasuke muttered under his breath, the obscenity like razorwire in the way he said it. "He'd better not _fuck _this up..." He seemed more foul-mouthed that usual. He was probably upset, she decided. He was not just angry, he was worried. He probably had a... complicated relationship with them. That's what Sakura had said, sighing. _It's complicated. _He must feel a lot of things. She didn't want to pry. And- she didn't want to make it harder for him. He was staring out the windows now. Tension crawled off him in slow waves. Talking about _his friend Naruto, _that way, the Naruto Hinata knew. The Naruto that would do anything to have his teammate back.

And it was not her business.

He seemed to want to stay in her room. He seemed to not want to talk about it. Hinata had things she had to do and her own polite face to show to the world. The business of being a clan leader so far was so much artifice, silk and crushed makeup and white lies. She told Sasuke that the servants would bring Naruto and Sakura upstairs. They would bring refreshments if he asked. They would alert him when his teammates arrived.

------

Of course, Naruto would come quickly.

Sasuke couldn't clear his throat, couldn't show his face without Naruto racing across the land like his pants were on fire, full of his usual idiot certainty that he would save Sasuke. Save Sasuke from _what? _From himself, ultimately.

Sasuke was half-expecting Naruto to be crouched on the other end of the phone line, like a jungle predator ready to spring.

But Naruto wasn't home. Where the hell was he? Sasuke hadn't worn a watch in a while, the crystal face would just get smashed in sparring or missions, but now he wanted to know what time it was, how many minutes and seconds had passed. Hinata's pretty sunlit room was too small and too sweet-smelling. Nowhere to rest and no space to think. He felt like he stuck out, the raised nail waiting for the hammer, black and ragged against all this soft prettiness. He could train but he had to conserve his chakra. He could read, but he was too keyed up, too restless, his thoughts wouldn't slow down. Sakura was probably at the hospital or something, but where the hell was _Naruto?_

The filigreed silver hand of Hinata's antique water-clock crept and dawdled. There were voices out in the courtyard, probably her relatives doing him the courtesy of _leaving. _Pity that some of the others didn't go too! Sasuke was not the kind of person who liked to pace, to let himself be _seen _pacing, anyway. If anyone was watching he'd have sat down and glowered and not moved a single muscle. But no one was watching, unless Neji was even more pathetic than Sasuke had thought. He was all alone with his useless circle of anxious thoughts. 

_Obviously _this was because of Naruto, because Naruto was such a pain in the ass and Sasuke didn't know what the hell to do with him. It wasn't his fault he had this... crazy friend that just wouldn't leave him alone, just wouldn't let him kill himself slowly and painfully in peace. It wasn't _his _fault that Naruto decided to care that much, it wasn't like Sasuke had ever given Naruto much cause to care at all! Obviously it was _all Naruto's fault- _Sasuke liked that answer, it explained everything. Now Naruto had to get his lazy ass out of bed and _show up. _

The sun was high over the mountains now, riding the pools of melt water on the block ridge of roof outside Hinata's windows. The sky above was unbroken blue. All storms over. Tiny green buds on Hinata's little bare bonsai trees. Or maybe those were the ornamental cherries, she said they were young seedlings still. Sasuke didn't concern himself with crap like gardening usually, one tree looked like another. He ran one hand hard through his hair. Then the other. His fingernail caught on a snarled spike. The bright wet metal of the water-clock ticked indifferently on. Naruto was _still _not there. Was Naruto looking for _new _ways to piss Sasuke off?

Naruto had an infinite capacity for causing annoyance.

Sasuke had not seen him for almost three years. But that couldn't have changed.

The wedding photograph had shown two happy, bright-eyed people. There was a gap of time between them and Sasuke now, he'd been gone for so long and it was something that smacked him in the face when he saw that photograph. He'd been nervously looking through Hinata's books, seeing nothing. The photo had fallen out of one, fluttered at his feet.

They had become adults, crystallized in a moment of recent happiness, but still Naruto and Sakura. The more distant faces of the Eleven were around them, these were people that Sasuke had thought of as distractions, animated sparring obstacles if that much. There was the sloppy dog-nin, the taijutsu expert out of his ridiculous green leotard for once. Sakura's blond hard-eyed friend. At their right hand, like a religious figure, like a kabuki ghost in purple watered silk, was Hinata.

Six years was a long time. Maybe they both would be strangers to him now. They'd only known one another for a short time. A year? Naruto talked about unbreakable bonds... Like the invisible force between a samurai and his sworn enemy, Sasuke thought, the hair on the back of his neck prickling up as if Naruto was at this very moment drawing near. The samurai knew with his supernatural awareness of the movements and all of the thoughts of his enemy. They were bound together. 

Even if Naruto was not an enemy, never had been. More a confused cross-combatant, someone Sasuke had fallen into the dust with in the blind headlong rush of years past.

Still the only friend he'd ever had, really. Stupid goddamn _Naruto._

Probably the only thing that had stood between Sasuke and just ending it. Why not? Orochimaru took him apart. Orochimaru worked around the distant tracks of Itachi and after all that came to it's utter waste of an ending, what else was there? It wasn't as if any of Orochimaru's toadies gave a damn if he died or not, that left more of Orochimaru's ear and attention for them. It wasn't as if anyone back in Konoha wanted him back on their doorstep, was it? It was easy in the black pit, in the jaws of the black dog, to believe that.

Except for Naruto.

Stupid idiot, he yammered on about saving Sasuke- and he'd done it. Hadn't he? Saved him from his own hand, and the idiot didn't even _know _it. Didn't even have the first clue! Same old stupid Naruto. 

Might as well just talk to him, Sasuke thought, glowering at the strange pattern of shine on Hinata's row of books, polished leather and gold leaf stamps. He had carefully replaced the photograph back within her book. Being an actual human being was never going to get easier if he didn't _do _it. Better to just rip the band aid off quickly.

Stupid Naruto was _late. _Sasuke looked around the room, at the utter _nothing _that he could do. He sighed.

Stupid Naruto, annoying as always. Like nothing had changed.

---------

There could be no ghosts in this house, Hinata thought, to comfort herself. It was a safe warm cocoon of paper and glass. Sasuke was safe here, and so was her sister and her family, and so was she. Her father was gone because his work was done. She was here now.

Sunlight cut long lines of shadow down from the windows at the foot of the stairs. Hinata had thought it was still mid-morning. But it was probably closer to noon. She had not eaten, and the fade of her hangover reminded her that maybe she should. The old cook would be full of advice to put something in her stomach before she attempted to greet the visitors and do her ceremonial duties. The front rooms of the house only had a few stacks of belongings now, most of the travelers had departed. The house staff moved through the long sunlit halls, light bouncing from ceramic dishes to splash white on their faces. They'd have to feed the well-wishers soon. The temple doors were bolted now, she could imagine the heavy steel locks without seeing them. There would be no more burning candles and papery ghosts. Even the lingering hint of kerosene and ashes had faded in the cold winds sweeping up from the gardens, the windows were all shut and the wooden halls smelled strongly of lemon oil and fresh cleaning. Hinata made her way to the kitchen, avoiding all the eyes and direct light. 

"Oh honey, you look like a raccoon." Momoe said with mock horror as Hinata came to the kitchen door. She was chopping fish into efficient little translucent slices. She smiled, a hint of gloss on her lips, and put aside her dripping knife. "I'll get a cloth..." Hinata watched her wipe the fish bits from her hands, rocking back on her heels. Her stomach gurgled at the thought of the fishy smell anywhere near her. She crossed her arms protectively, mumbled half-excuses. "But you have raccoon eyes," Momoe continued gently. Her manner always changed when she spoke to Hinata, she seemed to feel that Hinata needed more warmth than others. "You look like something we'll find scuttling through the compost." 

This sort of teasing was comforting sometimes. Hinata assembled a small smile, not entirely real, but she was grateful. This sort of thing also drew giggles from Hanabi, who seemed as resilient as ever. "Like a tanuki!" She weighed in from the table. Miya was beside her, drinking a late morning cup of coffee. "Except she doesn't have the big huge hairy-" Hanabi continued.

"Brat, eat your food." Miya said, administering the required bop on the head with her wooden spoon. But Hanabi seemed pleased that she'd managed to at least mention the big, huge hairy part of a tanuki, even if she hadn't gotten the naughtiest bits out. Hinata rubbed her aching eyes and thought that at least... Hanabi wasn't crying and sad. That would seem worse somehow. Hinata wouldn't know what to say to her. But then again, maybe Hanabi was very hurt inside and her usual misbehavior was a smoke screen this time. Hinata scrutinized her little sister, or tried to, because Hanabi noticed immediately and then her intense white eyes were squared on Hinata and Hinata felt too tired and worn out to even deal with this. 

"Hey, oneesan, you look like a trainwreck." Hanabi said authoritatively. She had recently seen her first train in a distant away-mission and Naruto had told her about derailing one once, it amused her terribly. "Are you okay, oneesan? Is that _mean boy _being mean or what?" Hanabi put down her rice bowl with a declarative clatter and frowned across the table. Hinata folded her kimono skirts under herself and found a tissue in her obi. All of this let her slip between the sights of Hanabi's piercing stare.

She almost said 'no'. "Yes. I'm okay." she said. She rubbed the tissue into her wet eyes. Someday she would feel normal, that's what Sasuke said. Someday it would all be a distant ache, like a scar or an old bruise. "Are you feeling better, Hanabi?" She tried to smile and this time it was a lost cause.

Hanabi frowned harder and disbelief settled onto her small, perfect features. Her eyes glittered, cubic crystals. "Yeah." she said, and looked away, over Hinata's shoulder and out into the busy dining rooms and shoji division behind her. She must have assumed that Hinata was talking about her hangover. Or maybe she just didn't want to talk about it at all.

Servants came with fresh clothes and wanted to take Hinata upstairs to dress her and paint her up again. No, she told them. Sasuke was there. _Mean! _Hanabi interjected at the mention of his name. Hanabi suddenly had boundless enthusiasm for talking, wanting to get into a long discussion of how Sasuke was weird and Sasuke was _mean _and Sasuke was in Hinata's _bed _again, and yes Hanabi knew all about it. And Hinata was quietly glad to be picked up like a discarded household object, bustled away by more servants.

The makeup and clothes were camouflage. The powder set on her face and tightened slightly, it felt like a layer of ceramic armor. Her father's dressing servants were no-nosense and clipped, she didn't have to talk to them, all she had to do was move her arms away from her body so they could tie sashes, hold still for their brushes and pots of crushed minerals. The kimono this time was long with formal sleeves. Soft gold with wheat-colored embroidery of silk trees and geisha lounging with shimasen. They twisted and tied her hair up with chips of pink abalone. She looked less and less like herself in the mirror, they painted away her swollen eyes and messy tears. All she had to do was obey them, turn her head for them the way they wanted. _They take orders from you, don't they? _Sasuke would say. She'd seen him with servants, he pointed and snapped and told them exactly what he wanted them to do. He was like.. someone with only the abstract thought of a family, it seemed. He didn't know how to behave with a real one. Her neurotic worries wouldn't make sense to him, she decided. _You should stand up to them. You should take control. _Yes, she thought. _You should tell them all to go to hell, Hinata. They can't talk to you that way._ Yes. But he didn't understand.

More servants came with a pot of green tea which she did not drink and a late breakfast which she forced herself to eat. Council attendants came and wanted to know when she would relocate her living quarters. 

"Soon." she said, looking at her white face in the mirror. It was as if all the evidence had been hidden, Sasuke's fingerprints carefully wiped from her.

Like a crime scene. But it wasn't _wrong, _what she'd done. She wasn't taking him away from them. He was still theirs, Naruto's and Sakura's. It was going to be difficult, but it wasn't wrong.

_You should have thought of that before you did it, _she thought to herself, closing her eyes under the powder and mineral shadows and blushes. It was the kind of thing her father would have said. The servants were only to complete their task. They put away their implements and closed up the closets. They packed away the makeup and the jewelry. They closed the door and left her, and she was in charge again. She had to get up and be what she was supposed to be. But she felt at loose ends, wanting to busy her hands with paper marking or plant-watering. Both were upstairs. In her room. With Sasuke. 

Neji's teammates arrived, in the wake of the last departures. The garden staff sent the warning, and Hinata came out to see them picking their way up the main path, past empty stone fire bowls and spent torches. There were flowers in Tenten's hand. But Tenten thirty feet away was still something Hinata could handle, a face she couldn't quite see clearly. She wasn't talking, she wasn't a reality that had to be confronted. The veranda was chilly under her feet and the wind pitched and bit at her ears and fingers coldly. She stood still and waited. When they were closer she bowed. Neji's tall loud sensei came leading them, he greeted her right on the wooden lip of the veranda. 

He was not solemn, but his face was not split into a blinding grin either. He took her hands. Hinata stood and let him do it. Ragdoll limbs. She was being ridiculous, like a petulant child. Neji's sensei said words, and she saw his lips move and his small shiny eyes glint, but she wasn't really hearing. Sasuke had done this, taken her hands. Trying to share her pain, or at least put a hand to it. Neji's sensei tightened his grip slightly. His fingers were very precise in their balance of pressure, he was a master in an entirely different kind of taijutsu from her own or Neji's. He made a encouraging kind of _hmmm _sound, and then he let her go.

She stood on the raised wooden deck and he stood on the ground with the half-frozen twists of tulip bulbs at his feet. Tall as he was, she looked down on the shiny ring in his hair. Lee was beside him, Hinata didn't see him until he leapt onto the veranda beside her. He had been beside his sensei, maybe a few steps behind. She was too fuzzyheaded to even notice, a fatal mistake for a ninja in the field. Lee sprung back into a standing position. "I'm so sorry Hinata-san!" he exclaimed, with the same urgency and enthusiasm that inflected every word out of him. _Hinata-san _even though they were teaching colleagues and if Hinata weren't so shy and slow to come to these things, would probably be friends. Lee was polite. Formal. In a different way than she was. In him it was joyful. In her it was like she was holding the world away from herself with both hands.

Tears pressed in on her eyes and she had the tissue ready for them.

"Don't cry, Hinata-san!" His hand was on her shoulder. She had almost flinched when he moved so quickly, and with his usual grace. She'd seen it a million times, walking through the schoolyard between morning and afternoon classes to watch him leading the advanced classes in footwork drills. It was nothing new. She was just a mess. "You can cry, it's okay to cry!" He said everything with brightness and cheerfulness. She rubbed her eyes and ruined her makeup. Her nose was running. She smothered it with the tissue. 

"Thank you, Lee-san." her own manners were brittle next to his. Her eyes stayed down.

Tenten was there. Hinata saw her pink sleeve first, then the polished cherry wood buttons on her Chinese tunic. Her warm brown eyes, which Hinata could not meet, and then she found her gaze zeroing in on a golden butterfly clasped to Tenten's small ear. The flesh was pinked too in the cold and the earring was cut away so only a finely worked gold skeleton, four wings, hung and clinked together. It was an old, very bad habit, a shy cringing away from faces and voices and over-concentration on that other person's clothes or hands or- worst of all- shoes. Hinata caught herself doing it and made herself look Tenten in the eye. 

Tenten said "Hinata-chan!" Hinata did her best to hold up her end of the smile. Because they were now almost sisters-in-law and Tenten was concerned, Tenten took a well-balanced step up onto the veranda and then she wrapped her long, lean arms around Hinata. Her long sleeves folded, and her body was close enough for Hinata to feel her warmth. Maybe it was all politeness, Hinata still couldn't quite figure Tenten out. Couldn't figure _herself _out, really, given how far she stood from Neji. Even now. Tenten whispered in Hinata's ear that she was sorry, simple words, Hinata smelled her peony perfume. White lilies. Her topknots gleamed like burnt gold as she held Hinata at arm's length finally. Smiled her confident smile, her _you'll be okay _smile. No matter how Hinata felt about it, it was easy to see why Neji had fallen in love with Tenten. 

If there was just going to be hugs then maybe this would be easier. She wouldn't have to try to talk. But then Tenten had let her go to and she had to. The wet tissue was balled up in her hand. She gestured with the other. "I'll... get Neji-niisan. I... " She caught the flicker of movement behind her, a servant in the hall. "Thank you for coming." she bowed to the three of them shallowly, manners observed. "I'll get Neji-niisan." Where was Neji? Hinata had no idea when Neji was, she hadn't seen him since the funeral pyre. She showed his teammates in and she had no idea what to do with them. The servant came forward and interceded. Shoes were removed and organized. 

"Wait, Hinata-san!" Lee was turning around from their group and the servant. There was a coiled sheath of papers in his hand. "Hinata-san, these are for you!" Not a scroll, but a collection of many sheets. _Hyuga-sensei. _The lettering was neat ink blocks, a student's writing. "To help you feel better! They're a good class, they were worried about you." He flashed his white teeth and his thumbs-up. Then he was lead away.

She tucked it into her obi, in the back like a short ninja's sword. Her broken fingernail was bleeding and she didn't want to get blood on the papers, it was definitely from her morning class. The wind had systematically torn apart her carefully tied hair. But it was okay to look a mess, she decided. It was expected. She didn't want... people to think that she hadn't loved her father. Never mind that she wasn't sure about that herself. The servants were either preoccupied or didn't bother to alert her. But maybe they saw these two as friends of hers, they didn't need to be introduced as formal guests. She was fingering an abalone hairpin when she heard Naruto's voice.

"Hinata-chaaaaan!" he boomed, tearing up the garden path. So maybe the servants had assumed she'd hear him coming. Sakura was only a few steps behind, looking harried as she grabbed Naruto's orange sleeve. 

He was tall now, probably taller than even Neji. His hair was a gold halo in the piercing sun. Sakura was pale and pretty beside him, even as she smoothed out her long white doctor's coat, elbowed him and growled at him to be polite, to mind his damn manners, to _act normal, _they must still think that Sasuke was a big secret. 

Hinata bowed. Because there was nothing different about this, was there? They were still her friends. Naruto drew himself up from his graceless stop. His blue eyes were incandescent. His face arranged itself in a smile, a genuine one. He was always on fire, lit by internal flames. Hinata said, slowly "Thank you for coming." There would be manners first. She saw Sakura realize this, her face set into a kind of vigilant understanding. She had one hand on Naruto's arm, like she had to hold him in place. She said the polite words, and Hinata answered with more of them.

"I was surprised to hear the news, your father was doing very well on the medication Tsunade-sama prepared..." Sakura said, after the sympathy had been ritually offered and accepted. The wind scattered her hair and threw it over her shoulders and around her face. With some difficulty she pushed it aside with a gloved hand. She paused to elbow Naruto discreetly, as he started to speak. They must not know how to even ask about Sasuke, Hinata thought.

"Uh... Hinata-chan, we just got the news- about your father. _Ow, Sakura-chan._" Naruto said. He rubbed at his ribs with one hand, his orange patterned coat wrinkling. Sakura had just elbowed him.

Sakura looked up at Hinata, and Hinata looked back, and Hinata thought at once that she had nothing she could say, nothing that was polite, and also that she should invite them in. They couldn't have this conversation out in the wind and the cold and in front of half the gardening staff.

In a small northward tatami room, Naruto's impatience lasted long enough for the servants to close the shoji door. The light was withered half-green and strange from the angle of the windows. There would be tea coming. Hinata had imagined this moment being improved by formality and the three of them sitting together and sipping tea. It would be okay, because Sakura was the student of the Hokage and the ANBU were under her control. Sasuke would be fine, and Hinata would explain everything.

"Is Sasuke here?" Naruto finally broke out, ignoring Sakura's sudden acid glare. "Ow! Sakura-chan! I said I was sorry about her-" His voice was boyish and high suddenly, wheedling, Hinata felt something in her chest tighten. Grief or dreams deferred. Guilt? 

"It's okay, Sakura-san." she murmured. 

"Hinata-chan, there was a phone call..." Sakura said, slowly. She watched Hinata carefully and Hinata played with the roll of papers and twine, and then put it aside. Her restless fingers and her blood-smeared thumb sought the crisp hem of her kimono. She had never known what to say about the two of them, other than that she was happy for them. It was enough of the truth, or the only parts that could be aired by daylight. She didn't... mind... that they were married. She knew it wouldn't work, so it was okay, and this was enough. She told them the proper words to let them know that it was all right about her father, at least that they didn't need to talk about it. The necessary politeness was over. 

"Your teammate, Uchiha Sasuke-san," she said, staring at her hands. "is here." 

It was a relief to finally say it out loud, to hear their sharp intake of breath.

She dragged her gaze upwards and saw them exchange a glance. Sakura had Naruto's hand tightly in hers between them. His knuckles were white. Silence tensed in the small room for only a second before Naruto said, tactlessly "Here? He's _here? _Hinata-chan, what-"

But it wasn't tactlessness, Hinata decided, burying her head in one hand and rubbing at her eyes. It was just an unwillingness to let anything stop him from achieving his goals- and she could really stand to do the same. She was being very unfair to them, making them put up with this pretense. She had imagined there being time, somehow, to say _I found him in the woods _and _I wanted to call you but the ice storm and the ANBU, _and her own neurotic worries and this wasn't her business any longer. Naruto was already on his feet and Sakura had let go of his hand in shock, her eyes were wide and there was a perfect curved reflection of the window in each. Hinata looked away under the glaring force of Naruto's voice and his insistent questions.

"...please." she whispered, holding her hand in front of her face, as if that would stop them from seeing her eyes welling up. There was no way to explain anything. When Naruto offered her his hand she was too scattered to take it. She couldn't hold this situation together. She should have said something like _come with me _or _I'll show you where he is. _

But her throat closed, and she just took Naruto's hand. She fumbled for Sakura's. No more politeness, she thought. He needed his teammates and they needed him. The servants would come with tea and find an empty room, but she didn't care. The servants stared at this small spectacle, the clan leader crying and pulling her friends down the hall. The servants said nothing. They parted, lifting heavy trays up high and out of the way, making room to let them pass.

----------------

Sasuke had solved the problem of Hinata's room and his own wretchedness by _going outside. _Very simple. It was cold, and the sun was sheeting off the water and hacking at his eyes, but he felt better. Discomfort went nicely with nerves. He sat very sit by the pond's edge. The flagstones were wet and his feet were freezing. Perfect.

A long murky orange belly flashed underneath the water. It was a big, mature koi, probably well-fed since Hinata was a soft touch. He was in such a bad mood that his scorn was catching everything on fire, everything he could think of. But he didn't mean that, he thought. He _liked _the fact that Hinata was gentle. He just hated where he was and _who_ he was and what he had to do and- in fact- the world at large.

Crows flew over his head. He watched their long fingery black wings. There were little birds, too. They stayed near the ground and jumped around. The really tiny ones had a spastic flight pattern, flicking back and forth between bare tangled bushes. Naruto was near. Sasuke was sure of it. That samurai's bond. That, and the fact he could hear Naruto yelling downstairs, somewhere. 

Or maybe he was already on the second floor? Maybe he was charging upstairs like a herd of elephants right at that moment. Naruto needed to hurry it up, the waiting was just making Sasuke want to punch his lights out more. He had to talk and not kick Naruto's ass. Too bad that he was a lot better at the former. Somewhere in the house, Naruto was yelling, the sound came up the wood frame, distant echos. Sasuke couldn't hear the words, but the tone was unmistakable. Naruto couldn't shut his mouth and get moving? Sasuke glared at the birds, the crows, the fish, the world around him. Too much to hope for, of course, that Naruto might just break his neck on the stairs. 

Naruto was the kind of person who's voice burned itself into your memory. An annoying person, Sasuke had told one of his hired hands, the last time he'd seen Naruto. An elegant understatement. Naruto's voice was coming closer. But Sasuke kept his back turned, and little nerves sizzled up the back of his neck, as if Naruto was spitting fire on him just by _being around. _The yelling was close, so maybe Naruto was too stupid to look out the window and see? Maybe he'd arrive, think the room was empty and-

"Sasuke-kun!"

Instead Sakura would open the window. 

And Naruto would be hot on her heels, bellowing Sasuke's name in that irritating way he had. Like Sasuke couldn't hear him coming miles away. _"Sasuke!" _And Sasuke wondered how he'd ever let Naruto start addressing him in that overly familiar way. He scowled down into his rippled reflection in the pond, fish scales shimmering glassily under it. There had been a muffled sort of high, hitched gasp too. Hinata was there. That was bad. He got up but did not turn around. The little birds burst from the bushes and shot to the roofline.

If he didn't turn around, he thought, then Naruto would charge over and yank him around. Or- lately- Sakura would. He'd only seen her twice since she grew taller and violently short-tempered, but he knew to listen for the snarl in her voice, the signal that she was about to start punching.

He would listen for it carefully. He could leap to the roof, he thought. There would be roof to put between himself and her strike range. There would be open air for chidori and kirin. But it wasn't a fight. It wasn't about fists. He had to _talk. _He didn't move.

And they didn't move either. Nothing moved but the birds and the wind. They would be charging by now, there would be screaming. He didn't _really _believe that they'd ever give up, but...

More silence. Maybe they didn't know what to think. He felt that way himself. Ten seconds of standing with his indifferent back presented to them was a miniature eternity. He didn't want them to touch him, he decided. He didn't have the energy to cover the flinch and act like he didn't care. 

But when he turned to face them, the sun bounced white hot off the windows and blinded him. He saw the silhouettes, both of them taller yet, he thought. But nothing more. Hinata was behind them, he couldn't see her eyes but he recognized the familiar gesture of her hand to her lips. For a moment there was only the scattered birdsong, because time had slowed down like this was a moment of attack. 

There may have been another gasp from these people he could barely see. Their chakra was familiarity enough, it was probably better that he couldn't see their faces. He squinted into the light and didn't move. The wind picked at his hair and then gusted, throwing it against his face.

"Sasuke-kun...?" That was Hinata. She had reverted to formality. "Sasuke-kun, please come inside?" He shifted his position so the glare fell from his eyes and he saw her fingers turning translucent pink with the cold. She stood at the open window with her hand curled over the frame. Sakura and Naruto stood behind her, unconscious attack formation, both of them tense even though their hands were at their sides- and for the moment, empty. It seemed wrong, they should scream and yell. There should be crying and they should yank on his clothes and slap him across the face and demand to know what was wrong with him. They should threaten to haul him back tied up in a gunny sack, if necessary.

"Is it him?" Naruto's voice broke through the silence roughly. "Hinata-chan, are you sure it's him? It could be Orochi-"

"It's not the sannin Orochimaru-sama." Hinata said, quick with anxiety. Her eyes and words seemed wet, like she was crying. She had so much crap on her face that he couldn't tell if she'd been crying or not. She didn't look at him. "It's the same person... that was in your team. It's not a henge."

Tense snaps of silence.

Then Sakura said "She would know. She can see his chakra."

"I know that, but what's he doing _here-?" _Naruto said, and he was being so _fucking stupid, _so utterly obtuse, it was enough to shatter Sasuke's silence into a million pieces. Sasuke was cold and he wanted to get their usual crap over with, so he could come inside. Naruto was just standing there like he didn't believe it, like he thought Orochimaru was sending Sasuke-clones right to his doorstep now. Sasuke had _called _him, practically handed him a personal invitation. He was standing, dumbfounded. He was _such an idiot. _

"Do you think it's three snakes in a henge, dumbass?" Sasuke snapped impatiently. The sun was in his face again and the wind kept tossing his hair into his eyes. There was no dignity to be had. "Has it ever _not _been me? Of _course _it's me!" 

But there was only silence, wide oceans of it, in the wake of his words.

Naruto's feet scuffed on Hinata's tatami floor. He must have taken a clumsy step back, Sasuke wasn't sure because that would require looking at him. He looked at Hinata until he realized it was making her uncomfortable. Then he looked at the roofline, the birds up there. The sky behind it. He took a long, deep cleansing breath. Crows turned their long black heads to look at him with one eye, than the other. The silence seemed to demand he say something, possibly like _I've come back. _But- no. If Naruto wanted this, _Naruto _could do it. He folded his arms. He was freezing. Hinata pushed the window open more, so he could come back in. But he stayed put.

Sakura had the decency to figure it out, though not quick enough for Sasuke's taste. "It's him, he's here." she whispered, and then there was Naruto's muffled half-growl about it maybe being a trick and was it _really _Sasuke and more about Orochimaru. "But Orochimaru is dead," Sakura said and-

"He's not dead. Is your ANBU intelligence that bad? He's just gone to ground." Sasuke growled. He was trying to keep his temper in check, but they were both _pissing him off. _But he had to stop doing that- if things were going to just spill out of his mouth he should at least decide what he wanted to say. Maybe that would stop up this dam of.. impossible feeling-type _crap _that he had no idea what to do with.

"Of course he's dead." Sakura shot back, finally losing patience herself. "You killed him!"

"I didn't kill anyone." he muttered. The birds hopped from the crest of each ceramic tile, completely unconcerned. Crows over the gable started to shriek obnoxiously. His feet were numb and he didn't want to waste chakra to warm them yet, he might have to fight this _idiot, _who was probably still standing in bafflement, frozen to the spot.

He looked up and Hinata was watching him, her hair all windblown and half of her hairpins falling out. She looked miserable, and he felt the embarrassed heat creeping up his neck. Why did she have to be here to see this? He had to make this work for _her, _at least. He knew she hated a scene. She probably hated seeing him this way. She stood and she seemed to be waiting, she must have been as cold as he was.

"...I'll come in." he said to her, finally. He kept his eyes down as he climbed back into the room. The window creaked behind him as she closed it. And then he leaned back against it and crossed his arms over the healed scar in his side and still did not look at them.

And he waited for them to speak. Try to save him.

The silence was granite weight pressing him into the floor, but he couldn't say anything, his throat was clenched tight. Maybe Sakura and Naruto were struck dumb by this, his bizarre reappearance in the Hyuga household, of all places. Rumors of not only Orochimaru's death, but his own being... greatly exaggerated, that was the cliché. He remembered that. Maybe they didn't know what to say either, that's why they were saying nothing. There was no flare of chakra, so they were not attacking. No fight was starting. Nothing was happening, which was somehow much worse. There was then a choking sound, someone suppressing tears- so one of them was crying. He thought it might be Sakura, but it might not have been Sakura, and that would be intolerable. _This _was intolerable. Were they going to make _him _say it? Did _he _have to reach for them now? 

He couldn't. He'd always thought that he'd kill Itachi, and after that the future was a utilitarian blank. Maybe there would be no future at all. He had no plan and no ability for this moment, because it was never to have come. He was never to have been here- ever. Dead, one way or the other. Already dead. 

"I'll... I'll go. I'll... the servants will bring you tea. I'm... glad you stopped by, Naruto-kun and Sakura-san, I.. I mean I thank you on behalf of the... " Hinata was backing out of the room and he didn't blame her.

So he didn't stop her either.

She couldn't handle it. She was no different than him after all. She couldn't be there. But the difference was that she didn't _have _to be there, either.

The door closed, vibrating slightly in her haste. Then the soft sound of her bare feet went away down the hall.

--------

She was a coward- still, she thought. She gave up and ran away.

She was an intruder, pushing her nose into their business, she wasn't part of their team and she didn't know Sasuke, not really, not the way _they _did.

She was maybe in love with him, though probably not yet. The romance novels couldn't help in figuring this out at all. She maybe should have stayed. She maybe should have said something, something that she couldn't think of, that would have been the right thing to say and would have made everything better.

She was definitely in love with Naruto- or she had been, sometime in the past. That feeling was a memory with a frayed end. She cut it out because it was useless, dead wood, hacked away roughly, because of course she did not deserve any gentleness from herself. Naruto loved Sakura, and Hinata was a Hyuga and the heir, so unless she wanted to be disowned by her family, she couldn't have married him anyway. There could be no mixing of Hyuga blood with the _Kyuubi, _the council would possibly rather put her to death than risk this dishonor. Tears were also weakness and her father would frown at her, right now, if he was there. His frown would start out as simple sternness, then darken into something black and horrible. 

So it was stupid to even think about it, this was what her father would have said.

"I think he's a traitor and an active enemy of the village. He had his chances to prove Uzumaki right, and he fought us every single time. I think he just _wants _to die." which was what Neji said, because Hinata searched the house until she found him.

What could she say? That Neji didn't know Sasuke the way she knew him? That he seemed so bad but he was really a good person? These were the things that stupid, deluded women said when they were being used by _some piece of scum- _which was also what Neji said.

She thought of her weak heart at moments like this. As he seemed to bring his hand to his side, the place where the Sound ninja had impaled him, Hinata thought about her heart. Injured by him.

Which was not a thing she could say. On his forehead, under the metal and fabric and the linen wraps under that, was his mark. Injured by her father, and as she thought about that, chakra began to collect on her fingers. She pictured dime-sized drops in her mind, spinning on each fingertip. Neji would have noticed, but he didn't react. Maybe he thought of her as so weak that he didn't have to prepare for an attack from her at all. He could stop her- with one finger. He'd said that to her once. Their relationship, she decided in a rush, was not really any better, not _really. _She thought she should just do it. There was no good way to get it done.

"If you want me to approve, I can't." he was saying. He was sitting in the corner of this little tatami room, a bit dusty from misuse, tucked in the back pockets of the house. His skin was very pale between the white of his robes and the rich wood-stain color of his hair. His elegant forearms and hands were braced on his knees, and he was looking mostly still at nothing, into nothing. There were fine shadows of grief and exhaustion on his face, silvery bruises, so he was upset and he was dealing with it without her, as always. It wasn't really any more her business than Sasuke and his teammates. He must have sent away his own, and Tenten too, which meant that he didn't want to see _anyone, _he'd chosen this room to be alone in.

-by choice, because he was talented and powerful and so beautiful, looking more and more like his father every year. He was a person with so much to offer, unlike Hinata herself, who felt as if she begged people to even notice her, cupping her empty hands. She got down on her knees to face him. He slowly pulled himself back from his thoughts enough to look at her.

She didn't want him to say that he'd beat up Sasuke if he hurt her, or that she was being stupid, or even that he actually did love her, even though he never really showed it. She didn't want him to say anything at all. She put her arms around him- not to embrace him, but to catch the knot of his forehead protector in her fingers. Her thumb was bleeding again. She untied the sash and put it aside. 

"...what are you doing?" he said, mildly exasperated. The metal plate clanked as she put it down on the floor.

It was like he only started to take her seriously when she pulled out the metal clasps in the linen wraps and even then he didn't speak, he just stared at her like she'd lost her mind. But it was familiar, she noted and weighed his reactions in a distant kind of way as she methodically unwound each layer of cloth. This was the look that had slipped onto his face at the end of the chunnin exam, when she'd called his bluff.

"Don't-" he said, and he raised one hand partially between them. But he didn't stop her, and he didn't even touch her. Chakra was saturated in her hand and he'd have to be blind to not know it, it must be burning holes into the back of his head even without his byakugan lit. 

"I have to. Neji-niisan." The strip of fabric was loose and almost completely unwound, when she let go it fell to his neck. She had seen his seal so rarely but it's black crispness stayed with her, like fine silk embroidery. Or better for Neji's absolute precision- diamonds chiseled into marble, or maybe into milled steel. It was almost artistic, the spiderweb of scarring around it, the agony of migraines that came upon every member of the branch house and the way the main house politely ignored it. It was beautiful, her father was skilled in his seal-making. The jutsu to tear it apart was so much more crude. Like a sledgehammer- she put her hand to his forehead and he was too shocked to stop her, the jutsu was too complete to stop.

------------

Sasuke had changed his mind. He'd _like _Naruto to yell and scream and shake him, please. He'd like Sakura to cry, and both of them to get in his face, and both of them to look at him with that bewildered _why _look and then-

Then he and Naruto could hammer at one another in a confused rage, because it wasn't like they could _talk _or actually deal with their feelings, so what else could they do? That was how it had always been before. That was what he needed now.

Sasuke would like that again rather than _this, _a closed room and three separate excruciating silences and the flowery collection of Hinata's things. The photographs and the books and the inter-layered flower scent, like her distant presence. A fight would stop this but he didn't know how to start one.

Because maybe they wouldn't react? Maybe there was too much water under the bridge between them, finally. In their silence he constructed the guess that they must have thought he was dead too. That's why they hadn't rooted him out of Orochimaru's cellar, his insistence on leaving had finally worked.

It was probably Naruto crying, though maybe not, since Naruto was a _loud _crier. So it was Sakura. Someone sniffled and there were quiet words that Sasuke could have heard perfectly, had he wanted to. Instead he stopped up his ears- with his hands, right out in the open where they could see him.

There was no roof and no sky to look at, the photographs were a silent indictment, so he watched his feet warm back up. The knobs of bone in his toes were no longer white and purple when Sakura said "It's really you." 

Sasuke wondered why Naruto wasn't shouting already, if they were finally convinced of that. But his mouth stayed shut.

And no one grabbed the lapels of his robe to shake some sense into him.

When he was sixteen- and entirely deluded, caught in Orochimaru's illusion- he'd met a shadow clone. He'd popped that shadow clone like a soapbubble. A temporary target. Evaporated.

Between the battles, Naruto's blond head had poked up over the rubble and his shout had cut through the silt and smoke kicked up into the air. It was the real one that time, but Sasuke had ripped out a bit more chakra and persisted and worked around Naruto's weaknesses- and finally escaped him. Maybe Sasuke had finally escaped him for good. His lip curled. This idiot.. he _couldn't believe this idiot._

He couldn't say anything either. 

_They _had to do this. The team was something that Sasuke had held in his mind, as something to push away from. He'd always thought of it as staying around, existing somewhere outside of him so he could run away from it. Surely Naruto would always chase, he was _stupid, _and he was loyal, and he wasn't like Sasuke who was determined to be miserable. But in that room, right then, maybe it really was over.

"Dammit... _dammit... _Talk to him." That was Sakura's harsh whisper. Leather cracked and shifted, she was probably clenching her fists.

Naruto's words were too soft, too growled up to be deciphered. 

"It's him."

Naruto snuffled messily. "_That _isn't him."

Did they doubt that he could ever actually want to come back to them? Didn't they understand that he wanted to, he _needed to, _didn't they know that he _couldn't say it?_

"...Sasuke would never not wear that.. that _fucking _sissy bow on his _ass_-"

"Shut up, dumbass!" The words exploded out of him. He looked straight at Naruto before he could stop himself and Naruto's blond blueness lanced him right between the eyes, made him want to stagger backwards. 

The wall held him up as Naruto wiped his eyes with his grimy knuckles. He was the one with wet eyes, and under it his fierce fanged grin, it seemed to glint with the tears on his face. "It _is _you." he said. Messy splatters of tears and stupid chuckles were rolling out of his throat. "Fuck you, bastard, it _is _you. You're _not _dead."

But Sasuke could only stare back, weighted down with too much silence. If he wasn't going to spit in their face, what _could _he do?

"You were dead, we were sure you were..." Sakura began, somewhere to the side. He could see the pink wisps of her hair and a long white jacket she was wearing with an ID card and pens and doctor stuff in the pockets. If she was a doctor now she shouldn't be saying these stupid things to him. 

He had to keep his temper. He had to tell them, somehow, without telling them. He had to share his feelings and keep them under wraps. 

"I told you, Orochimaru went into hiding." he said. He turned around and faced the window. "I was never dead, and _he _isn't dead either. But where have-"

"Where have _you _been!" Naruto interrupted rudely. "Where the hell have _you _been, they told us you were-"

"What do you think?" Sasuke hissed. His seal wound shot pain into his arm as his shoulders knotted up. He drew in a shaky breath, his temper was exploding out of it's cage, awake and raging. "You couldn't check up on those leads? You _idiot!" _He slammed his hand down on the windowsill. He felt like he was shaking his finger at Naruto, scolding him like a naughty child, counting off his disobedience. "Fucking dumbass, clumsy idiot, you _idiot, _you _fucking moron, usuratonkachi, _you couldn't even do _this _right_-" _

"_Shut up!" _howled Naruto, same as always, his mouth perpetually open. He probably felt it coming.

"-I was waiting for _you, _idiot!_" _That hand became a fist, pain curling up his arm. The words came out in bitten off pieces. Naruto couldn't take it, _that _hadn't changed, Naruto balled up his fists and hunched over with his own rage, blond spikes flying, like an angry animal, his eyes hot under the tears now. Sasuke could see the reflection in the window. Sasuke couldn't face him.

"You were dead! _Fuck you_, you bastard! You make us think you're dead and-"

"That's stopped you before? Stop giving me these excuses, _where _were you-"

"_You were fucking dead!"_

"I wasn't _dead, _you _idiot! _Shut up and listen to me!"

"If you weren't dead, where _were _you!"

"I just told you where!"

"You made us think you were dead!"

"_I _didn't do that, it was Orochi- " he had to let the air out of his lungs, it was like gusts of fire, he was yelling and he couldn't stop himself. Probably the whole house could hear this. He got more air in and started again. "_You're such an idiot, _you talk and talk and you _never shut up _ but the one time I need you to _be stupid _the way you always are-" And then he wasn't yelling or even talking, because his arm was alive with agony and the words rippled apart into a shaky gasp. Sakura's hand was on his arm and she'd grabbed him the exact _wrong _way. 

"It's in your shoulder." she said tensely, almost to herself. She was right beside him now, her hair was blown up by the heating vents at their feet, it was tickling his chin. He couldn't move, she was too much at once, what could he say to her? And meanwhile, she was going on about stupid doctor crap. "It's deep, you're swollen, and if it hurts for me to touch you here-"

She had to make a diagnosis _that _way? He tried to pull away from her, but she had him and also there was _the wall- _he didn't want her poking at the wound, it _hurt. _He didn't want her sympathy or her closeness, she was _worse _than Naruto, he could cuss at Naruto and fight him- she was impossible. "Nothing." he snapped, trying to pull his arm out of her grasp anyway. He clamped his teeth together against the pain. 

"Sasuke-kun, hold still please." she said. She had a voice like clear water, and this close to him he could smell the traces of medicines on her and the burn of spent chakra. She tried to pull his robes open and he grabbed her wrist. He could only grab one hand and she cross-blocked him with the other, pinned his arm under hers and it _hurt, _it wrenched his shoulder. He grit his teeth so he wouldn't show any pain to her and she sighed, impatient. But it was a thin veil over floods of worry, sound magic dissected down her tone. "Sasuke-kun. Don't struggle and it won't hurt. You're injured." Naruto was right behind her, breathing hard, they were both _right in front of him._

"It doesn't hurt." he lied, raggedly. He couldn't get away this time. He could only try to shrink away from her- which would be too humiliating. He took his good arm and pushed her hand away. She evaded that too. He glared acidly at her and she paid no attention. "You're _annoying." _he spat at her, in final desperation. What else could he say? Something tightened on her pale face, he saw her eyes crumple slightly. She had his clothes down by his elbows by then. She was wide-eyed and her cool fingers were on his inflamed flesh, the heat and pain of it zigzagged up though his shoulder joint. There was finally nowhere to run. He looked down, letting his hair fall into his eyes fully. But it wasn't working. It wasn't _working. _The flush was climbing into his face again. This was a fiasco. 

"Holy _shit." _Naruto said, leaning over them as Sakura stripped off the bandages, the medical tape, the poultice of herbs, now browned and rust-speckled with his blood. Naruto whistled under his breath and laughed stuttery-quick, like he was still jumpy with adrenaline. "Hah, you asshole, look at you! I can't even eat after seeing that, I'll go to get ramen and I'll be like, no beef or pork in it, I just saw something that'll make me lose my lunch-"

He was _so fucking annoying, _Sasuke couldn't believe it. He glowered under the shade of his long bangs and bore imaginary holes into the mats in front of him as Sakura's fingers pressed gently and the pain numbed down. He couldn't believe most of all that it actually... was almost like nothing had changed. You couldn't batter a relationship that was so flimsy, just Naruto's stupid determination, and have it _survive, _and spring back to life...

...you just _couldn't _do that. No one else would care that much. Or should.

"This needs a surgeon," Sakura said. "It needs Tsunade-sama."

"It's just been cut out." Sasuke muttered at her.

"With a hatchet?" she retorted, impatient with worry. "It's down into the muscle!"

"With a kunai." He averted his eyes. There was nothing to look at. Just them and the wall. Sakura exhaled in hot exasperation. 

"You cut your seal out with a kunai," she repeated. "You cut your seal out. You... " Her hair brushed against his face again as she slowly shook her head. "Sasuke-kun. _Sasuke-kun." _It was unbearable, he didn't want to know how much he'd hurt them. He liked not knowing. Their worry and their concern, that tense silence like he was an enemy who might just snap and kill them, all of this. It was too much. He couldn't even handle his _own _pain.

"It was sterilized." he muttered, trying to bolster his case. He didn't see her roll her eyes but he didn't have to, either. He heard her grope for irritation. She'd probably learned that trick from him. Cover the pain with annoyance. 

"Sterilization doesn't make it okay!" she snapped. She was probably imitating her equally annoying mentor, the completely intolerable Fifth who had let Naruto run after him in the first place! 

"I had a drink first." he grumbled, mostly under his breath.

"It's really disgusting." Naruto told him cheerfully. _Idiot, _immune to the quiet heavy worry in Sakura's face, or else too busy making stupid jokes, trying to heal everything with his dumb loud laugh. "I can see your bones and everything. You're a big mess! Ha, you're _so _beat up, looks like you lost _really bad_-"

"Shut up!" he snarled. "Shut your mouth, I-" Sakura was prodding and he had to shut _his _instead. He glared at the discarded little clump of herbs. "I knew that _shit _was useless.." he grumbled.

"It's been treated well, it would be fine if it were just a flesh wound." Sakura said, getting down to business. Sasuke almost bothered to snap at her again, but it occurred to him that she was probably addressing Naruto. "It's been trained on and _reopened-" _That part was probably directed at him. "but the problem is the seal. It's Orochimaru-sannin's work. It needs Tsunade-sama, I'll have to call her." She shifted her weight like she was getting up. And it was happening, finally. They were going to just... take him back. It was going to be all the same again... all fixed.. like nothing had happened. They just wouldn't talk about it. It would all be fine. They'd be a team again. Everyone would forget. The world wasn't like this. Some people got reprieves. They were just fucking _lying _to him, just trying to paint it all over and act like it was okay.

"_No." _he hissed. He couldn't go back with them, stand in front of the Hokage, be locked up in chains and put in the dock- _no! _It wasn't going to work. Not this time. This time he did catch her wrist. 

She wasn't ready for it, because his reaction was so out of proportion, probably, to what she expected. The chidori was ready, he just had to line up the charka circuits. He had to do it, he had to shock her so she couldn't clobber him. Simple. Her eyes connected with his and they were a clear bottle green, they rattled up in her head as the electricity flowed. He couldn't- he couldn't go back with them, back into the clutches of the village, back to Kakashi and to the Hokage and the empty Uchiha graveyard- "..._no!" _he gasped. She crashed to the mats, her coat fluttering after her. 

He had his head down, he couldn't _look _at them. There was a heavy scent in the air. Burnt hair, sizzled in the charge. A dizzy haze of unreality. But Naruto would be at his throat in fractions of a second, he had to get another chidori lined up. _Sakura-chan! Sakura-chan! Fuck you, bastard! _Naruto was yelling already.

Naruto's hands must have had the strength of nine tailed demons. His hands were everywhere, whipping like flamed tails, the crisp memory of the Kyuubi bubbling through the walls. Too many bad memories.

"_No." _Sasuke was saying, still blocking Naruto somehow. Muscle memory. "No." His voice came out strangely calm. This was bad, hand-to-hand with Naruto in an enclosed space, his arm numb with pain again. Taijutsu was out, ninjutsu other than surgical strikes of electricity would ruin Hinata's things- _stupid _of him to stay here. He was one-handed, Naruto was reeling forward blindly, his hands outspread like clawed fingers. The sharingan needed no seals, no hands.

Genjutsu needed no hands or space at all. 

"Asshole, we're trying to- we're doing this for _you!" _Naruto shouted. "We're trying to _help _you, you _called _us, you-"

"Lying to me?" he spat in Naruto's face. "Pretending that it's all okay?" With the next breath he shoved Naruto away. Patronizing him like he was a whining child! He hated _liars _more than anything. He pulled his shirt closed with his good hand. He cast the genjutsu- and a black cloud touched the ground over Naruto, all around him. Invisible blackness was filling his lungs and covering his eyes. Naruto went down on his knees, gagging like his windpipe had just been crushed.

And now it was real, _now _it was raw and hanging out in the air. Now the usual things Naruto yelled at him, and the usual things he yelled back- all of that was over with. There was nothing else he could think of to say or do, even though he'd wanted this, a _real _confrontation. It was here and it was impossible.

"...I can't do this." he gasped. His heart was hammering in his ears. His hands were out and raised to fend them off, words or fists. Sakura was on her back, out cold and Naruto was curled into a ball, shaking, the air was full of smoke and burnt smells. He needed air. Space. "...I'm leaving... I'm l_eaving_ this time." It was amazing, the urge to want it, want it so badly, and _throw _it away. Drown in his misery. "I can't do this!" They were both out and they couldn't hear him. "I can do this _without _you." He took one step back, and then another. Then the door was at his back. "I can't do this." he whispered. _I can't do this with you._


	18. Spirits

The other thing she said was-  
-_I have to do this, Neji-niisan._

Hinata said his name like a separate declaration. The things she said to him at moments like this took on their own individual gravity. The close space of the walls and their dusty paper panels seemed to suck all the sound and air out of the room. Awkward shadows from the wooden shutters fell over them now. The sun was dawdling slowly, over the high gable of the main house. Crows screamed outside. And somewhere above them, a team that was not her own was meeting. But now, there was silence. She had no idea what they were doing. What they did, or decided, or said to one another was probably none of her business anyway.

It was late afternoon, or possibly early evening. The house's stream of activity and its familiar rhythms seemed too far away to tell. This was a place where no one would go at this time of year, a dusty sitting room with a few stacked cushions and an empty hearth squared into the floor. It would be cleaned out for the summer. But now in the sodden end of a lingering winter, it was half-abandoned to its soot and dust, and a baleful collection of cobwebs. The scrolls hung over them on the walls, curling with the changing humidity and slouching crookedly along their wires.

Neji didn't order her to leave- and even though she was clan leader now, she would have obeyed him instantly. He said nothing; it was too late now to stop her. But he was probably only tolerating her presence. And her sudden need to do this, which must seem so out of character for her. She had been behaving badly since her father's death, and the entire house knew it; but this was worse, this was a direct infraction of the house's most basic rules. Neji had not stopped her, and maybe he felt that he couldn't. He was waiting for her to explain her strange and rash actions. That must be it. She nibbled her raw, peeling lower lip nervously. But he held his opaque, intricate silence.

She fussed over him. It was her nerves that made her want to do something, as if that would improve the situation. He was sitting down, that made things easier. If he fell and if the convulsions came again, she could easily catch him. She may not have needed to worry ultimately since the council had taken off her own heart seal without much trouble. But she was not on their level of ninjutsu, she was decades behind them. And his was on his forehead, in front of the chakra of the third eye. It wasn't hard to imagine she would blind him somehow if she failed to grasp some precise targeting component or inflection of the jutsu. The seal removal jutsu seemed so simple and brutally direct, but surely it could be dangerous.

Dangerous. That was the next thing he said to her, after _what are you doing? _and _you can't remove a seal like this- _that it was dangerous and reckless and it was an unacceptable risk. But as she sat back, her hands folded in her lap, she could see that he was startled more than anything. She always tried to use his own words to try to understand him, words that only he wanted to use, words like _fate _and _destiny, _predestination. Neji was the kind of person, it seemed to her, that needed to have a handle on everything around him. He didn't know there was a jutsu to undo the seal- _I heard there was such a thing but of course I did not believe it- _because it would give him false hopes, she thought to herself. He said "you shouldn't have done that, what if you couldn't complete the jutsu?"

What he meant was _I don't accept this as part of reality._ He must have told himself that he would be trapped under the boot of the main family for his entire life- of course he couldn't accept this, she thought. It was too much to hope for. She anxiously knit her fingers together in her lap, tapped her forefingers together, but he seemed fine, if completely appalled at what she'd done. He blinked at her, disbelieving, from beneath the hand he pressed to his forehead. The jutsu was complete, and the seal was gone.

The difficulty was in explaining.

"I saw my father..." she began, when he had subsided into silence.

But now she wondered if that was really why. She'd wanted this anyway, she hadn't wanted to.. have Neji be bound to her under fear of sudden death. She _had _seen something, never mind whether it was real or not or whether it was her father's spirit. Or if it was a fantasy of her own, created by her need to see him again, as if her mind could create such a complex illusion. Never mind that… it was pointless anyway, when she wasn't trying to explain herself to people like Neji she didn't ask herself questions like that. She wondered about rightness, but she didn't wonder about _reality. _She had always wanted to wipe away the seal, maybe her father was just the excuse she needed, the excuse she gave herself to trust herself this time.

She raised her eyes to meet Neji's gaze. He stared at her, baffled and strangely outraged, taken aback and shocked into silence. Exactly as he'd been, his wide white eyes, the moment when she stood before him at the semi-finals, told him how it was. She knew that was real, she didn't know if it was right to _mention it to him, _that was all. She knew under it all that he was the one who feared and who was torn apart by the destinies of his family. And she'd known she saw that clearly, but she knew also that he probably would not believe her story about her father's spirit.

The stammering returned at the worst times. She couldn't get a full sentence to come together and make sense. "… I-I didn't want.. to have you feel that way... that you should have to fear this.." Words were failing her and she frowned, curling her fingers into one another in her lap. She showed him the seals, formed the killing jutsu that would have lit his cursed mark like a lantern. She held the final seal and showed him that it was defused now. He was her second, her surrogate. She wanted him to stand by her and protect her because he _wanted to, _not because he lived in fear of the seal. Of her family. And of her, weak as she was, compared to him.

"What are you going to do..?" he said finally, after she'd asked him if he felt dizzy, if he needed her to fetch medicine and water, if it hurt. He still hadn't taken his hand away from his forehead.

In the silence around them you could hear the council's fury, gathering, distant roars through the hollows of the paper walls, the interstitial spaces of the house. This was the place where so many spirits must walk, because so many Hyuga had been mutilated just like Neji had, right here, right on these floors and under these walls, these indifferent clean sweeps of ink and Zen brushwork.

"...I don't know." she finally admitted, miserably.

"Hinata-sama." he said, exhaling in a long tired sigh.

Because there was silent clockwork in the air now, the tick of hidden dynamite- the news would ripple through the house, there could be no secrets here. Things were moving and something was being set into silent, unstoppable motion. She could feel it perfectly, and she couldn't stop it. The council would be angry, but the council's anger raining down on her was nothing new. But the council would have solid proof now. She had broken the rules. "We'll see how many enemies you have." Neji said, getting up. She watched him move and judged his balance and alertness. "If you have any supporters, they'll show themselves now."

She stayed sitting, she looked up at him. The light pressed his shadow onto the sectioned white paper behind him. Dust motes floated in the last shaft of sunlight that pierced the room. Instead of his forehead protector there was a mottled bruise of grey pinks and sickly purples, the lines of the seal were blurred away. She was so used to seeing him with a band of fabric on his forehead, he looked strange without it.

"I don't... think that way, Neji-niisan." she murmured.

He was always sighing at her, sighing over something she wasn't or couldn't do. "Hinata-sama. You need to start. Right this minute."

"I don't want be that kind of clan leader." she whispered. "Neji-niisan." Was it strange to keep using these honorifics dividing them into master and surrogate, superior and subordinate? She thought they needed this structure, their relationship was so flimsy, if you took the backbone out it would just collapse.

And there would be nothing connecting them at all.

"I don't think my father wanted this.." she blurted. "..he didn't want us to be strangers to one another.. Neji-niisan, I know he did this and made us this way, but I don't think..." But she was talking about a ghost vision again, her own cloudy rationalizations. That familiar look of gradual resigned disbelief was gathering on Neji's face. And it was probably, she decided, that he knew it wasn't about her father at all, it was about what _she _wanted and what she felt she had to do. "My father would want me to do this," she said finally. "I believe that."

There were many Hyuga family legends about clan leaders and how the line of stars, the Hyuga constellations in the sky of southwestern cross, the summer solstice, all aligned and connected them in spirit as well as blood. There were plenty of Hyuga stories exactly like that. And Neji didn't believe in any of them. He seemed to put up with them for her sake. Why he did anything was suddenly a cryptic, exhausting mystery to her. She couldn't understand him. She _tried _to reach him. She was sure this was right, the spirit line of clan leaders wanted a change and she thought she might be the person to do it. There could be no other reason why she had been installed in her position. But it came out wrong. She had to go, she decided. She had to try her best now to say something polite to excuse herself and not just run from the room.

"You're my protector." she said. Then she closed her mouth because she didn't know what to say after that. There was nothing but empty space in her thoughts, after those words.

"I need to put ice on this." he said, and she heard the whisper of his feet going to the door. "And I'm saying as your protector, I don't know what they're going to do to you for this."

--

The door was at his back, but where could he go?

The roof? The world itself had no peace, no escape from Naruto.

"So where were you six months ago?" Sasuke gasped at them. He couldn't get any further away, so he sidestepped Hinata's desk and her bookshelf, he finally hunched against a wooden cross-brace in the corner. Naruto lay still now, though his eyes fluttered and jerked under his eyelids. His fingers grasped at nothing. Sakura was slowly stirring, but it would take minutes, he knew. She would be disoriented even after she came around again. A chidori current to the brainstem, up the motor nerves, into the central nervous system, and she might even have short-term memory loss. She might not even remember what had happened. That would be perfect_, _Sasuke thought. He'd like to forget this entire episode too. He hunched down, his hands braced on his knees. He listened to his harsh, broken rhythm of breathing. And he knew…

…that this wasn't all right. He was _not _in control of this situation, or notably of even _himself. _The chidori and the genjutsu, the shoving and the argument… It seemed a bit more brutal than usual, even for him. He made a lot of threats after all. But when did he ever get this far? Naruto always stopped him. Maybe things really had changed.

But he must have forgotten the way Naruto was, because when he looked again Naruto was already struggling to get up.

He moved swiftly to the far corner of the room. Access to the windows, he thought. Plenty of room to put more genjutsu inner-space between himself and Naruto, if necessary.

If Naruto insisted on fighting.

Naruto was getting air back in his lungs and blinking rapidly, feeling around the floor and getting back in touch with reality. Sasuke had at most twenty more seconds before Naruto was awake and alert enough to come at him again. If it were a fight, he'd use this moment of weakness to strike Naruto- either dead, or unconscious. The snake-summon tattoo on his forearm tingled, as if in silent encouragement of this idea. But no- he had to talk. He had to get them to take him to the ANBU. He had to make some kind of peace with them, even if he couldn't even face them. As the seconds drained away, and Naruto coughed himself back to wakefulness, Sasuke's balance foot slid back, instinctively drawing away, he thought.

He'd never known what to say to them, anyway.

And behind Naruto, in the long angle of early evening sunlight from the window, Hinata's dressing table mirror. His sidestep had brought him into alignment, the movement caught his eye and-

-a shard of his own reflection. A blur of black spikes and movement. Of jagged unsettled body language. A person off-balance.

He'd instinctively avoided mirrors from the time he'd left the village. It wasn't worth the bad feelings to see what he'd done to himself. He preferred the distance of knowing intellectually that the drugs and the sleeplessness and the dangerous training and the constant stress of being at Orochimaru's claw tips was doing serious damage to his body. And some of that damage could be permanent. He knew for instance that his current height was at least three inches shorter than he should have grown, the pound of flesh the steroids and amphetamines and god knows what else had extracted from him. But knowing these dry little facts wasn't the same as _seeing _the evidence right under his nose, was it?

No. But he felt so disoriented that he flicked his gaze back to the mirror, to clasp onto the painful wild look in the black eyes there.

This person was _not _him. Not how he should be. This was all wrong.

He was flushed and his hair was messier than usual- for a moment his eyes were wide and prickled with anger and something… his pride of course would not allow him to call it fear, he was not in the mood right now where he could admit to that. And instantly, as his eyes locked on this crazed, violent, out of control person he saw-

-his kabuki mask rematerialized, his face returned to its expressionless lines, it's faint touch of concern, but certainly nothing that would indicate real emotion. It was the face of a considered, measured Zen monk, perhaps fresh from hours of deep meditation. It was an acting trick, a necessary survival skill, an elegant piece of carefully created bullcrap. He was good at _looking _like he was perfectly in control of himself. But the mask was only good until it slipped.

And these two… were past _fucking _masters at getting under his skin, weren't they? This idiot and this pushy girl, chasing after him… just never giving up on him, no matter what he did to them, no matter how much he lashed out at them. They just wouldn't let him destroy himself. They just wouldn't get out of his face, would they? They wouldn't mind their own business.

Harrumph. Irritation flickered across his face, disrupting the harmony of the illusion. Stupid Naruto. Even worse that Sakura- the voice of reason!- wouldn't write him off either. He was really losing the knack of pretending that this all wasn't squarely his own fault.

Sigh. That was less destructive to the illusion, its serenity carried a gentle note of sadness. He really wouldn't have believed he could ever be much of an actor, but that was before he threw himself into the situations he had. And necessity was necessity. He looked hard, and the mask looked back, empty-eyed except for that pale shadow of quiet regret. He frowned and it didn't vanish. It fit itself to his worries, absorbed them like fluid ripples on an undisturbed pond. It showed nothing of its depths, it was a perfect two way mirror. He could _look _like he had a grip on himself. And appearance was everything to Orochimaru.

But then blond spikes were edging into his line of vision, Naruto's chest was heaving after scraps of air and his head was still down like he couldn't stand up straight just yet, his legs were quivering with the effort. Sasuke guessed that he couldn't see clearly, he was swaying dizzily on his splayed feet. He wasn't shouting yet. Maybe he didn't yet remember where he was, his mind could be as scrambled as his balance. His inner ear would still be too disrupted by the genjutsu and that would confuse his optic nerve, sharingan genjutsu was noted for its brutality to sensory nerves and their connected areas of the brain. So Sasuke had maybe a second. Maybe two. But Naruto was getting up. Rapidly.

And there was no more time. No more steps back. But Sasuke pulled himself together sharply, felt the mask correct itself. It was a mercy really, that he could lock all of this turmoil inside himself, and let others think that he was just…. fucking… _fine. _Maybe even to these two, they never seemed to be shaken off by his scorn, but then again...

..the look on their faces at the day under the electrical clouds, when they stood in the chipped crater of Orochimaru's whittled stone lair. The way they'd watched him stand and accept the vanishing jutsu from Orochimaru, like he really was hurting them, and badly. Like they needed to know that he was still _himself, _somewhere under all that snakeskin and samurai costumery. But that he made it very hard to believe. He almost made it impossible. So maybe the mask worked on them, it could dissolve the thread of their hopes, disconnect their efforts...

But not this time.

It _was _a good thing. He had to remind himself of that, that he _wanted _this. He was just so used to running from them, that was it. It was just a habit. He felt fully disarmed going into this battle of.. words or whatever, he'd never known how to talk to them, never been able to make them understand. It worked with Hinata but maybe it just did _not_ work with them. Maybe it never had. Maybe Sakura would fly off the handle anyway, and it would be no better.

And it didn't matter, because Naruto's eyes were sky blue, deep as the column of water that had formed when he smashed Naruto over the head, deep into the footwaters at the Valley and Naruto had shot down into the depths. The supernatural electrical blue as the chidori's light died on Itachi's face. That color, maybe. Those feelings. Naruto's eyes and Naruto's face and Naruto's hand- balled up in Sasuke's collar. Just before Naruto shoved him against the wall.

They'd finally caught him. He was caught and he couldn't get away from them.

--

"Another of your decisions," Neji said wearily, casting one eye towards the ceiling. There were distant thumps overhead, an urgent wisp of raised voices.

"I can't do this for them." said Hinata, ice dripping in her hands. She transferred handfuls of melting cubes from the small steel freezer box she'd taken from the meat locker, the backrooms of the kitchen were the closest part to this secluded corner of the house. She wrapped the ice up in the discarded linen and handed it to him.

Neji piqued one eyebrow like a calligrapher's comma. He was momentarily speechless with the overwhelming understatement of that.

And with the absolute insanity of what she was doing, it seemed. "He's troubled. He has _real _problems, Hinata-sama." Neji shook his head carefully, holding the ice to his face with one hand and closing the other into a slow fist on his knee. Hinata watched the taijutsu reflexes in the curl of his fingers. She wondered silently if her own problems, Neji's problems, these were somehow not real? "He's not a problem _you _can solve." Neji said with a hint of impatience. "I know you want everyone to be happy, but I've seen his files, I've seen the psych profiles on him. He's not in the bingo book for nothing- or because I'm just being dramatic, Hinata. I'm not saying this to scare you, I'm trying to help you protect _yourself._"

He said that now and then, alluded to her not believing him because he was talking about things too seemingly theatrical and strange for her, because she believed the world was one way and he _knew _it was another. That these hidden horrible truths must be like fairy tales, ghost stories, storybooks- because these were her only contact with them in her place of absolute safety.

"You can't help him. I know you want to. But he doesn't need someone to kiss him better, he needs professionals, Hinata. He can't help himself." Her silence must have spoken for her, because he sighed and he closed his eyes, leaning back against the wall. He had retied the forehead protector loosely around his throat while she'd fetched the ice. Like she did, it was almost as if he wasn't that angry, but it was too indefinite as a sign. "I see we can't talk about this." he said tightly.

"We are.." she began.

"You aren't listening." he said. "You can't hear me over that nonsense, that idea of Uzumaki's, I know he has this effect on people but _he's _reckless, Hinata, _he's _just lucky enough to get away with it but you aren't-" Was it the look on her face that made him falter? "You aren't anything like him." he finished, anyway.

"I know." she whispered. She sat with her wet hands clasped in front of her. She'd subsided to the floor and tucked her feet under her. That he would talk at all was a rare opportunity, they mostly lead separate lives. Ships passing in the night. It didn't matter how much it hurt to hear him say these things, she wouldn't leave until he told her to.

And it was true, she wasn't anything like Naruto.

She looked at Neji, framed suddenly in that last golden sliver of light, it had passed into the hour right before twilight. She wondered if he'd ever love someone who just didn't love him back. It seemed impossible, Neji was what she was supposed to be. He was like a more perfect version. No- someone present and undeniable in the world, while Hinata herself was his pale shadow. This feeling was familiar, damp and somehow bittersweet, a numb depression. Was she angry at him? All of her anger had frozen into this strange formation before, a tired despair at herself, the sense that there was no way to make it better, she was _not _feeling any better. She maybe had made a big mistake, freeing Neji...

"Why do you do these things to yourself...?" he asked, as if in silent understanding of her thoughts. Or maybe it was all still plain as day to him. She stole a glance at him and his eyes were closed.

"I miss you." she whispered.

For a moment there was silence in the room, Neji didn't seem to move. For a moment she thought that Neji was just gathering his thoughts, but then it became clear that he wasn't going to answer. He was ignoring the words. Her face burned. She had always known she shouldn't say this to him.

"Hinata-sama..." he leaned back against the wall, resting his weight against it. "If that's what this is about, then I can talk to Tenten, she can help find someone..." he sighed, irritable with pain and the bother of this "someone more suitable, someone who isn't... " He shook his head, the motion completed the sentence for him.

"He's a problem, he's more problems than you need. You don't need this, Hinata, don't do this to yourself. And if it's because of me or of Hiashi-sama-"

"It's not that." she whispered.

"But isn't it?" his voice had taken on a raw sharpness. "Why would you choose someone who's so…" He sighed with frustrated impatience, he seemed to be thinking something like _crazy _or _unstable _or _untrustworthy, _but unable to decide between these words. "…emotionally unavailable." he concluded with clear distaste. And then, sharply: "He's not like your father, Hinata-sama. He's the way he is because he has real psychological problems."

He said that- _real psychological problems- _like it was a curse. Hinata bit her lip. She felt like he was staring down at her, picking her apart, using his ANBU training on criminal tendencies to tear down someone who was _not _a murderer, a criminal, a horrible person who deserved to be torn apart under interrogation.

Fear tinged her anger, she was so used to doing nothing and saying nothing. Taking it, as Sasuke put it. He said- _you don't have to take that, Hinata You don't have to let him treat you that way._

About Neji. And about her father. And about everyone else in her life who did this to her. Who sent her away and shut doors in her face and wouldn't let her be close to them, wouldn't take her seriously.

Maybe before she would have just subsided into a quiet depression over this. She would have scuttled away. That still seemed comfortable, easy, it would be something she knew how to do. But she still had no idea what to do with anger if she wasn't going to bottle it up and bury it- and do nothing. She didn't want to yell and scream at him, she didn't even know if she _could _do that, she wasn't like Sakura and Ino and all these other intense, fiery girls.

"That isn't what he's like." she said. It was only a whisper, but she managed to say it without cringing or stuttering. Her voice didn't waver.

But it was like a mouse's squeak. Neij looked at her with cool incredulity from behind his wet fingers. "Oh really? He's been twisting the knife in Uzumaki's back for almost six years now." Her mouth opened to protest this, but Neji was speaking quickly now, his eyes flashing and narrowed. "Uzumaki believes that he's just some sort of misunderstood person, but I'm telling you, Uchiha Sasuke chose his path, he's threatened the village, he allied with the killer of the Third and a sworn enemy. He's a notorious missing nin and he's probably going to be executed."

_I won't allow that. _This is what her father would have said. _That will not happen in my house._

But she could only close her mouth tightly and squeeze her eyes shut. She felt her blunt nails scraping at her palms when she squeezed her fingers together tightly, twisting them with the restless nerves and the endless horrible silence. At least he was talking, even if he was saying the things he was.

"So I don't understand this." Neji continued, shaking his head in summary judgment. "I know you want to help everyone, but you should have taken him to the police. I don't understand why this missing-nin is in this house and I don't understand why _you _are doing any of this. He may think that he can sweet-talk you into covering for him, but I-"

But he wouldn't allow it. But he would put a stop to it. But he would intervene- protect her. She cut him off before he could finish.

"You don't understand, Neji-niisan." Each word weighted, cloudy islands in a heavy chain. It was a step too far, it broke his patience finally.

"What exactly do I not understand?" The rawness in his throat was sharp and immediate, as if he'd stressed his voice. Or as if he'd been crying. The rough wetness was familiar to her. So was his anger- its suddenness and it's brittle edges. "You've chosen the most _violent_- oh, you think he wouldn't hurt you? The most violent and emotionally unavailable person possible. A person who is going to.." he exhaled hard, as if his patience had just drained away suddenly. He was losing his voice. "someone who won't just break your heart, he'll ruin your whole life."

She shook her head slowly. She pressed her fingers against her closed eyelids. Strange patterns beat upon one another in front of her eyes. "You don't understand." she whispered. There was no way to make him feel what she felt. Or to even make him understand those feelings, it seemed. If there were words that would help her explain, make him believe or even listen, she had no idea what they were.

And somewhere out in the silent space of the room around her, Neji's clothes rustled as he stepped away from her. "Well, if there's anything I've learned from dealing with Uzumaki and Uchiha Sasuke, it's that you can't save people from themselves. You're making a mistake, Hinata-sama."

He seemed to say these words from on high, towering over her even as she shrank forward on her knees, curling her head over to the mats.

There was a distant crash over their heads, like someone had just fallen to the floor.

Neji made a short sound of irritation. "There's the person I don't understand and who means us no harm." he pronounced coldly. " And who I am to believe is through with his-" he seemed momentarily too disgusted to continue. "-usual destructive behavior. "

There was nothing she could say to that.

And maybe she was wrong, Neji was always so good at making her feel small and stupid. Even if he probably didn't mean to. His judgment of character would be far superior to her own. Maybe she just _was _that useless.

"Well, you've made him our problem now." Neji said wearily. He fixed his tired, resigned gaze on Hinata, looked her in the eye. Pinned this decision and it's consequences squarely upon her. Her actions. She had done this.

"You'd better go deal with that." he said, and shut his eyes against the pain of his broken seal, pointed shortly to the ceiling with his free hand. The conversation was over. She was dismissed.

--

It wasn't really a fight. The adrenaline was useless.

Or was it? Sasuke couldn't tell if they were fighting anymore. Words or fists, nothing ever seemed to come of it. For a moment Naruto just pushed him against the wooden brace of the wall. The pretty little frames of pressed flowers hung above him rattled, but held. The crossbeam dug into his spine. Naruto's fists pulled the collar of his shirt tight around the back of his neck, and it hurt, it pressed against his swollen shoulder. But he was _not _going to show that weakness, not to _this rude idiot, _not now. Naruto just gasped for air for a moment, his hair drooping in front of his bowed head.

"All this time..." he wheezed. The genjutsu must have made him thought he was drowning. He must still be dazed with it. "...all this time and you still don't get it... _dumbass_... " And it was like Naruto got his dirty fingers all over Sasuke's heart too, because the idiot could still make him grit his teeth, tense up in anger- and at the laziest and most brainless of insults.

"..shut up." he muttered. And found that his collar was cutting into his windpipe, jamming his vocal cords flat. He set his jaw irritably. He could get out of this- he instantly had eight or nine countermoves in mind, his favorite was the one that involved a fingerstrike to Naruto's kidney- but that would accomplish nothing. Wouldn't get him anywhere. He had nowhere else to go but here. This room and these people.

"You're stupid because you don't understand it." he muttered at Naruto, at Naruto's big blue eyes. He watched them narrow, by reflex watched for the liquid black spots of Naruto's pupils to slit and turn fire-red. "You think I don't know what he wanted? I went _because_ of what he wanted. You never got it. Idiot." Naruto's hands seized and talking became too painful to bother.

So Naruto would have to talk. He loved talking, he never _shut _his _mouth, _after all. Let him do the work, he was cramming Sasuke against the wall in a way that forced his head back, made talking nearly impossible. But Sasuke still had to _look _at him. Even in the evening's half-light, the clearing smoke of the chidori singeing the fine hair off Sakura's arm and burning the edges of her clothes, Naruto's eyes were still that harsh bright color. That supernatural blue, no wonder it had a demon behind it. He'd always known there was something unusual about Naruto. He'd even seen that demon, touched it's bubbled snout, lorded it over Naruto and acted like he was untouchable and felt nothing.

Or like he didn't feel his own guilt twisted in his gut, whenever Naruto looked at him this way. Like he just couldn't understand… any of this. Why anyone would have to throw themselves into the hands of someone like Orochimaru. There were stupid religious myths that Sasuke didn't believe in, things about the eyes of demons and spirits that could strip the lies and self-illusions from you at a glance, but…

…he was probably just getting slowly strangled and was hallucinating before he blacked out. Breathing was difficult, but still possible. Naruto was still heaving air into his lungs, pointing his glare like the glittering edge of a kunai right through Sasuke's skull. And Sasuke glared back. Stoically.

He thought that he should tell Naruto that it was over. The chase. But his lips were dry and his throat was constricted. He said nothing, hesitated too long. Naruto's attention had shifted to Sakura, and his face was breaking into concern. Sasuke watched him numbly. That change in his expression, when his big blue eyes would turn soft and liquid with such easy affection. Naruto made it look so _damn _easy, being close to people He and Sakura were probably actually in love, they weren't just… stupid hysterical people, people who needed to get a life and leave him alone.

Their feelings were real.

There was motion to the side, fabric bunching and hands brushing against the mats. Sakura wasn't staying down either, nothing was going his way today, both of them were going to be back in his face.

"Are you going to run away again, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura said somewhere behind Naruto. As she stood up, her pale hair and face appeared behind Naruto's shoulder.

Sasuke watched her reach to the back of Hinata's desk chair to steady her balance. If she was at all surprised about being sucker-punched with a chidori, she wasn't mentioning it. Or letting him see, anyway. At least until she lined her gaze up with his, and he saw that she was getting on with it, trying to focus on what was important here. Either she expected some bullshit from him, some screaming and tantrum and so on, or she was resigned to it by now.

There were moments sometimes when he realized how much he _hadn't_ grown up, how much others had grown up and gone into the future without him. How much he'd really lost while burying his head in the sand and refusing to actually help himself, or get through the grief, or even acknowledge the grief at all, really. To acknowledge it was weakness. But that whole way of thinking was the weakest thing of all. Maybe she was too young and stupid herself when she'd begged him to stay. But now, he thought, looking away from her, _now_ she knew it.

"There's nowhere to run to." he said to her, as if correcting a careless logical mistake she'd made. Trying to hold to the illusion of his dignity. Naruto's knuckles pressed into his throat and the fabric bit tightly at his neck. A slight shift of Naruto's hands and the pressure would fall completely on his shoulder. The wound was throbbing slowly. It had a sickly corona of hot swelling, he could feel it up his neck and down his arm. "That hurts, idiot." he hissed at Naruto. "Stop it."

Naruto's blond eyebrows raised. "Yeah? It hurts?"

"_Yes_, you clumsy _moron_, it-" How the hell was he supposed to do this? He didn't know how to stop fighting them and just.. come back, this idiot didn't understand anything!

Naruto grinned at him, so close that his hot breath was tickling the side of Sasuke's cheek, Naruto's blue eyes were right in his face. Here he was again, not any one of a million crystal clear sharingan memories. A vivid reality. Naruto.

It was so _fucking _embarrassing to be unable to _not _care, to _not be friends with this idiot. _To need him.

"Bastard, if it hurts so much," Naruto said, grinning like he'd already won. "why don't ya just stop fighting us?"

--

Hinata knew what he was doing. He would ignore her now. If she stayed, he would get angry with her. He drew intricate lines and boundaries around their brief interactions. He would be upset if those lines were crossed.

And he was trying to make her leave.

But she found her small store of courage and stayed put. She looked at him instead, measuring out the space between them with a long gaze, like he was on the other end of a telephoto lens. Byakugan without the distance. He might have been a million miles away.

Because-

-he never let her know him. She couldn't tell if he liked her, if he hated her, if he resented her -or what he'd ever felt towards her. His anger at the chuunin exam had blindsided her brutally, he'd never shown it to her before. Had she ever known him? She tried to. But she was getting nowhere, wasn't she? He seemed to talk- and to act like he knew her completely. And like he understood absolutely everything about her. He'd put his hand through her chest. His fingerprints were on her heart, but it he wouldn't let her see anything. Or know anything. She tried, but he never came any closer.

She didn't answer him, she just held the ice to his forehead. He was still dizzy from the jutsu and had been forced to sit back down. She had gathered a fresh handful of ice from the bucket for him. A tiny rivulet of cold water ran down the side of his cheek.

He didn't resist her, or push her hand away. He didn't strike her for her defiance, which was something she'd- bizarrely- imagined. He was harsh with her sometimes, but he never raised his hand to her.

He just shut her out of his life. When he no longer wanted to talk, he sent her away. He turned away to other people. He said he wanted to be by himself. Or that he needed space, and his short irritated sigh made it clear that he wanted her to leave now.

To postpone this conversation- end it- but leave it open-ended. They always did this. And that was how they'd lived eighteen years in one another's shadows, without ever talking or even acknowledging one another on anything but the most ceremonial level. Their entire relationship was ceremonial, it was a shiny surface of polite words , a film of pretty lacquer over a dark gulf of space. She looked at him, and he might as well have been a stranger. The handful of tatami squares between them might have been thousands of miles. He lived beside her, and she was still somehow all alone in this big house. She was so clearly behaving strangely out of grief, but she couldn't help it, she couldn't stop herself. She didn't want to live this way anymore. She was so tired of being held away from him. She missed him.

And it was the wrong thing to say, that she missed being close to him so much, missed the relationship that was not there and had never been there- but she was so tired of not saying it.

And now, too, in her head there was Sasuke's voice. It was different than Sakura and Naruto, who were friendly and attentive, who never made her feel left out, or like a third wheel in their.. well, their _marriage. _But still, somehow they were very uninvolved on the basic level of her house and her family. Those things were Hyuga business, and they did not get aired out with her teammates or her friends. But Sasuke… was _involved. _

He had said to her, low and gentle in her ear: _don't let them push you around, Hinata. _It was another firm, gentle nudge, a few words or a soft touch to her shoulder, the way he'd gently steered her to bed, to the bath, to just take care of these basic things while she was too bludgeoned with grief. It was his way of nudging her towards standing up for herself. He said that she was courageous. And that she could do this…

It was something she had to do. She couldn't be a jellyfish forever. She had her rabbit impulse to run and hide whenever there was a situation like this, but that accomplished nothing, that just stranded her in the wasteland of another horrible non-relationship, like the non-relationship she'd had with her father, like the non-relationship she'd had with Naruto- until she asserted herself and spoke up. These things would stay dead and static until she _made _them change. She was so tired of being lonely and staring longingly after Tenten and Neji, when all she wanted was a relationship with her brother. With her _brother. _

It was not so much to ask.

Sasuke was right, her family was twisted up in horrible, silent, uncommunicative knots, it was a house where siblings killed one another and- yes, the gentle fist that had pierced her father's heart was probably a hand related to her by blood- all of that toxic load of undeniable truth. She was sick to the gills of it. She was the person who stood and spoke for this house now, it's living beating heart in the middle of a cold wash of white Hyuga stars, cold Hyuga eyes, and the empty mannered _crap- _Sasuke would not have said 'crap' exactly, he would have said a bad word. Hinata elected to not even think this word. Absurdly, she still felt bad about even _thinking_ bad words in her head, though she did do it sometimes- and she blushed. She was too timid. She had to stand up and change this house. It felt a bit like Neji's destiny, the way her chosen mission just stared her in the face.. like a scatter of a million stars, aligning in a constellation of fate all around her. She couldn't run and hide from it, it confronted her from every facet of her house.

She had to start right here.

Because Neji wasn't going to do this for her. Sasuke could not be here to do it for her either- though she knew he wanted to go beat Neji up, she wouldn't allow it. She didn't want them at one another's throats. She didn't want Sasuke to see the exhaustion and sadness on her face later and know it was because she'd argued with Neji, she didn't want Neji to worry about her being alone with Sasuke. She had to speak. She had to.

"No."

It was a whisper. A breath. She waited, her heart fluttering in her temples. Afraid-

-of what? She thought wildly.

Of his disapproval. Of being ignored by him again. Of him walking away and leaving her with the same situation, that same empty space between them. She judged the distance to the door, she could grab his sleeve if he got up and tried to leave the room. He'd heard her, he was looking at her in that puzzled way, like he wasn't sure that she even knew how to say such things, and she said again, louder: "No."

A word like a heavy clomp of her getta's wooden heel.

"No?" Neji repeated, his confused expression resolving into the first dark withering of impatience.

"No, Neji-niisan." It was easier to say it now that it was out in the air.

The tiny precise muscles around his jaw worked like delicate piano hammers for a moment, as his clear white eyes fixed on her, tried to make sense of these words coming from her. "What do you mean 'no'?" Irritation was slowly gathering in his tone, but she shook her head and forced herself to continue.

"No, I'm not leaving, Neji-niisan."

And, after she'd breathed and he hadn't walked out, or slapped her, or yelled at her… or rejected her, turned his back on her, or even just brushed her off like a million times before, when none of this cloud of fears materialized immediately, she felt she could add: "I want to talk."

He blinked. His slender eyebrows came down together under the dripping icepack he held to his forehead. "About what?" Puzzled again

"About…" she almost said _about us, _but they weren't… like that, they weren't in-

_Well, _that kind of relationship. It wasn't that, it was just the distance that warped the way they were, made it seem strange and wrong, it was just that they should be able to have some kind of normal family relationship, the way other siblings did. It _wasn't _wrong, she had to repeat that to herself, steady herself to continue, to finish the sentence. She swallowed the lump out of her throat. "About the way we are." she finally managed.

She watched him with expectant anxiety. He would say something, it wasn't that he _wouldn't _talk, he often talked circles around her, swirls of his criticism and his complicated and impossible anger. His resentment of the family that had never really gone away entirely, his impatience and his commentary- she never really had to wonder what he was thinking, but he still never _talked _to her, he just talked _at _her, the words were like clouds of smoke, a shinobi's basic disappearance genjutsu. Poof. And he vanished, he just faded away from her.

But it was like the moment at the chuunin exam, when his mouth had fallen right open in shock. This time, he maintained his composure. But the look in his eyes was the same. Like he'd thought he knew what she could do and had misjudged her limitations. He looked straight at her finally, both eyebrows piqued in surprise. "You're like Hiashi-sama." he said, distantly. He held the icepack down in his lap, and droplets of water started to slide off the spidery fine bruising on his white forehead. "I never know what to expect."

This was too cryptic, too distant, it wasn't what she wanted, she shook her head once and licked her lips nervously, pressing forward to speak again- "Neji-niisan, I-"

"I'll talk to you." He said quietly, his eyes down and his tone softer than she'd ever heard before. Water dripped off the neat planes of his nose as she held her breath tightly. "I don't have to hate you anymore."

"…hate me..?" she whispered, but he didn't seem to hear her. He just looked down at the ice dripping in his fingers. The linen bandages hanging looped down around his shoulders, their little steel fasteners clinging with tiny triangle teeth. His seal fading under the bruises.

"I don't have to hate you for having a father while I don't." he said tonelessly. "Now your father is dead too."

--

Just stop resisting them.

Naruto made it sound so easy. And it probably would have been easy- for him. He would have never made these kinds of decisions. He wouldn't have run from the village- and he was just as mistreated, wasn't he? His parents were just as dead as Sasuke's were.

But that didn't mean that Sasuke wanted to hear this.

He shoved Naruto away, a crossblock with his good arm against the exposed angle of Naruto's elbow. Sloppy. But it wasn't a real fight, Naruto wasn't really trying to pin him, no one was really trying to hurt anyone. "Off." he muttered, pushing Naruto back. He straightened out the creased marks Naruto's hands had made in the fabric of his jacket. The three woven fans, intertwined like the three hollyhock leaves of the Tokugawa samurai, were a silent reminder.

"It's not that simple." he muttered at Naruto.

Naruto shrugged, fluid and easy, like he could shake off the tension instantly. "Yeah it is." he said.

But _no it wasn't._

Sasuke watched Sakura step between them, and the sureness to her movements now. He could have reached out and pushed her away too, seized her small wrist again and really hurt her this time. The first chidori was a good shock, but it wasn't yet fatal, he could get _really _serious. This could definitely become a real fight, and very quickly. But he just watched her numbly as she got in between them, and as she reached across the chasm that seemed to yawn there. Or maybe that was only in his own mind, maybe these two knew _exactly _how to handle this, and how to make it right again. He thought that given how hard they'd pushed for this, that was the least they could have done. But he knew better. His guilt was conquering him finally, making him stand still and not slap her hand aside. He watched her like it was happening to someone else, like the wound she touched was completely uninvolved with him. He didn't resist, and the chakra moved behind the solid lines of her flesh and his, from the slender fingers she held to his forearm, like long acupuncture needles. He avoided her eyes. She had assumed a closed expression of total concentration, she didn't try to impale him in her hard green glare again. That must have taken too much energy that she needed otherwise, the pain in his shoulder hushed, it seemed, between one breath and the next. She took her hand away warily. And her eyes said that she didn't trust him.

"Sasuke-kun, why did you do that?" she said. Not her shannaro-growl now. Just pure steeliness. Her balance seemed a bit weak from the electrical shock, but that didn't deter her focus or the precise needleprick of her question. It was annoying that she was as smart as she was. She was unsteady on her feet and held onto Naruto's arm for balance- he could have shoved her back and she would have struggled to keep her feet under her.

But she had him, all the same.

He didn't like being spoken to this way, and he let her know it. She wasn't going to be shaken off by his huffiness, and she let _him _know it too. "Sasuke-kun." she said again with even authority. "Stop pouting and answer me. I was trying to heal your shoulder, why did you do that?" She spoke as if she'd told herself that she would _not _become emotional, that she would be the calm one, no matter what went on around her. She had planted her small feet like she'd drawn a line in the sand, she was going to see this through, and she was _not _going to go easy on him. And probably, he had to admit, she should not. She had no sharingan, but her eyes nailed him to the wall anyway. He was aware of Naruto watching from the sidelines of the tatami square they both stood on now.

_Because of your chakra, _he thought, because of her deadly left hook to be exact, but she hadn't actually been attacking him. She'd made no hostile moves at all, and the only one who'd flipped out and acted like a complete lunatic was himself. He didn't come here to fight them, and he felt like saying that too, but maybe he was the only one who _didn't _understand that. He kept slipping back into fighting. They hadn't even _attacked _him.

And that wasn't right. He _had _to make this right.

But he wasn't about to squirm under her questioning like a guilty child either. He coolly looked away from her and- so easily- summoned his usual manner of irritation. He had far more important things to do, and she was bothering him. He ignored her question- like everything she had to say it was a waste of his time- and got to the point. "Take me to the ANBU." he said dismissively.

Naruto's grin collapsed into his stupid puzzled look, his 'duh' expression, then his smirk again. "What're you talking about, bastard?"

"The ANBU." Sasuke repeated impatiently. They might have still not understood, but he couldn't tell because he was staring hotly at the ceiling rather than look at them. "I don't know what Orochimaru's done. I need to be taken into ANBU custody." He could feel Sakura's eyes on him anyway. Feel Naruto's shifting mood between happiness and bafflement. But she must have shut him up somehow, because only she spoke.

"Are you coming back to Konoha?" she said. Her tone was painfully neutral. She must have come to expect very little from him. Or maybe she just didn't have any hope left. He could see that she was the one who dealt with the reality of this situation, so Naruto could keep his intent focus without... well, without the burden of the facts, frankly. She was the one who had thought about all those other times that he'd casually struck at them, or he'd made bored death threats. She was the person who remembered all the things he wanted to forget. And her eyes, therefore, were like the blind face of justice. Like an ancestral ghost who had risen up to seek him out, and force him to see.

He did see, he thought. Finally, he saw. He swallowed with difficulty, then hardened his expression again. He _was _coming back. And he thought that returning to the village was entirely implied by going into ANBU custody, but in the interest of getting the conversation ended, he said "…yes." Little more than an affirmative grunt. He tore his gaze away from the wooden crossbeams and made an effort to look her in the eye.

It wasn't easy. She knew too much about him, too much of his stupid, hurtful behavior. He wanted to blame her too, he hadn't _asked _her to love him, to try so hard for him. But that was a dodge, and they both would know it. And even if he could force the word out, 'sorry' wasn't much either. Not that he could.

Naruto digested the single word he'd spoken and his insistent cheerful voice was there again- _haha, bastard! You're so slow! I knew you'd come back but you dragged your lazy ass didn't you? Haha!- _but Sakura neatly stepped further into the circle of Naruto's arms and elbowed him in the ribs. "Aw, Sakura-chaaaan," he murmured. And Sasuke saw that even he watched carefully, hawklike. Under his stupid smile and dumb jokes there was hard vigilance.

"Why, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura said, penetratingly.

He kept his composure. Perfectly. He thought: _Because there's nothing left for me. _And that was because this was all the family and home he had left. These two. And it was more of a family than he'd had in his father's house. Being ignored by his father, to be exact. Being used for.. god knows what by his brother.

And he'd thrown these two and their love away. For nothing, for a bunch of lies, whether they were being told by Madara or by Itachi or by Orochimaru. The exact schema of who'd lied about what, or if everyone had just lied their heads off to him was just too complicated- he was tired. He had to explain himself to these two, at least enough to get Sakura to stop pinioning him with her wary glare, so he drew air into his lungs, didn't look at them, and said, as if by route:

"I've left Orochimaru. I'm done trying to kill my brother. I don't remember clearly what happened because Orochimaru uses mind control techniques. I'm returning to Konoha to inform upon Orochimaru and Uchiha Madara and become reinstated as a Konoha shinobi. I need the ANBU to clear me because Orochimaru may have sent me here as a trap for the village. I'm at the Hyuga residence because Hyuga Hinata found me injured in the woods south of here. I'm involved with her now and I don't want you interfering in our relationship. I'll rejoin the team if you both stop being so annoying. I'm tired of answering questions. The next person who touches my shoulder is going to regret it. Where's Kakashi?"

It was probably more than he'd ever said to them at once before.

And it shut them both up, which was satisfying.

--

"I thought you wanted to talk."

Neji's voice was more tired than sardonic. But the prickle of his irritation was there. She didn't want to look at him, this wasn't what she'd wanted. It wasn't what she'd pictured. But it was the way it was, he was right. It couldn't be any other way, the history between them wouldn't just evaporate, she couldn't magically make it disappear and make them be siblings, or even friends.

Even though she wanted to. It was another one of her desperate, but ultimately childish hopes. And Neji saw that so clearly, it was something he had always understood about her. She was impractical, and she didn't know how the world really was. She saw him raise both delicate eyebrows coolly, then hold back from saying something even more cutting. He was going easy on her, and maybe she should have felt patronized and insulted, but she couldn't feel anything but a twinge of relief.

"That isn't going away." he said to her, as she went through the motions of gathering more ice, held it to the bruised imprint of his seal mark. "It happened, Hinata."

She bit into her lip. It was true, it had happened, it wasn't something they could politely ignore and forget about. He might have said instead: _your father killed mine. _She almost wanted to say it herself, just to get the words out in the air and _said. _Maybe it would be easier then, if she just admitted what had been done rather than the ornate collection of polite Hyuga euphemisms for the incident. _His father's unfortunate and accidental death, _that's what she should have said. "I know." she whispered, just to say something. "I'm sorry." She would have apologized on behalf of her father and the bloodline of clan leaders, but it would probably just have upset him. And it wasn't hers to say, she knew he didn't believe in the chain of stars and spirits. It was the only time it would work out in her favor and the guilt for the murder wouldn't fall upon her. Not in his mind. But he wouldn't take an apology that was not hers to give. She couldn't change this for him, or order it away. Being a clan leader so far was becoming an extended exercise in total helplessness. "I wish I could do something." she said. She watched the little tracks of cold water slide off her fingers. But there was nothing she could do, he knew it.

And he didn't need to continue, she understood where he was going with these words. But he couldn't seem to stop himself, there was a grim obsessiveness moving through his half-whisper now. "They killed Hiashi-sama too, I think. They used the Fist. And Hiashi-sama knew that his mother, your grandmother was killed that way too. And you have a weak heart, Hinata, you almost didn't survive when I-"

The breath squeezed tight in her chest. She felt the razor's edge of tears. Her fingers clawed tightly on her handful of ice, and Neji paused.

"They sealed the coffin so the duty guards at the gate wouldn't have authorization to check the body. And…" his eyes searched out hers. Tried to zero in around the hand she'd pressed to her face, trying to hold the tears in. He wasn't going to let her hide from this. "…they burned it before the Konoha medical examiner could see."

In the sudden hush after those words, she sniffled. It sounded clumsy and loud. Her fingertips were brushing against his forehead, but they were too wet and cold for her to feel anything, would it have been so hard for him to just take her in his arms? To just protect her and comfort her like a brother? But she couldn't ask. She couldn't even speak. He said "You know this, Hinata-sama." And she did, she had a byakugan to pierce the sealed coffin and she saw what went on up in the highest echelons of the house. "I think it's because he was training me." Neji said, his voice turning thick and exhausted. "And because he was starting to accept you. So they killed him for that. And now you've defied them too."

Because it was the right thing to do, it was what her own moral compass of starpoints steered her towards. She hadn't thought about the consequences, she'd done it in a kind of feverish madness. Even now, she thought, the threat of the council's fury was so unreal. It was too abstract, too omnipresent anyway given how they never seemed to approve of anything she did... anyway. It was hard to be afraid of anger when they were _already_ anger. But Neji was right. It could be different now. Maybe she really had crossed a final dividing line. The rules of Hyuga blood that divided the clan were old and sacred and...

...she knew there was no way they would not be furious. This rule was so integral to the clan, it was an animating spirit to everything they did. They took half their members and branded them. And then they forced one house over the other, split their familes and children from one another. She had no idea what Sasuke would say about this, but she knew he would be disgusted, it was just beyond the pale in any context other than that of the clan itself- it's inner world, it's own myths of justification.

She wondered if Neji knew what it was like to be ashamed of the clan. He seemed to mostly be angry at it- and Hinata thought that this was because he had probably never felt like he was part of it. Maybe it was only when her father had reached out to him. But then again, she herself had almost been disowned and exiled from the house entirely. But she still carried it, the Hyuga crest and it's woven lick of flame, it's serene solar manji, like it was imprinted on her heart. She naturally assumed it's guilt and it's bloody hands as her own. She hadn't even thought about it consciously.

And she was probably in serious danger. But she couldn't feel… anything.

She didn't regret it, but her hand was shaking. She didn't want this- to be in this danger, to have Sasuke's life hanging in the balance while the ANBU interrogated him. She had never valued her own life much, even her father had said it wouldn't matter if she died. And maybe she would have agreed with him- before. But she had her sister, her brother and Sasuke. And her house- a purpose. It was something to live for finally. She didn't want to die, she didn't want things to be this way. It was so impossible. Neji must have saw her crumpling into tears and relented. His hands came around hers and took the ice. He didn't touch her, or hold her as she sobbed in a pathetic little ball next to him. He didn't condemn her for it either. But she didn't know what to think, this was all too flimsy to convince her that he cared for her at all. It wasn't what she'd wanted. Maybe it just couldn't work.

"So we do need to talk," Neji said, when she'd wiped her eyes and straightened. "about what we're going to do when they find out about this." The sun had set and the room was crossed by long blue shadows. The bare winter gardens outside glowed with the final half-light against the shadows climbing the walls all around them. Neji refastened his linen wrap, and the his forehead protector over it. He looked normal again. And maybe nothing had changed.

This would forestall exposure of his defused seal from the servants, and from even less senior Hyuga, who might not bother to use the byakugan in the house. Even if they saw, they might not report it immediately, they may only start a slow current of whispers. This would reach the ears of the elders, of the council, sooner or later one of them would see Neji. They might sense the changed flux of his chakra. They would find out- one way or another. And then all would be revealed.

"I just wanted to do the right thing," she sniffled as he helped her to her feet. "I'm the clan leader now, and I have to change things. I can't… "

She couldn't let this sort of thing go on unchecked any longer. But she was so worn out by the scale of her opponent, it's hundreds of hands and spies throughout the house, it's multitude of piercing white eyes, she might as well have been fighting a force of nature. She didn't feel anything when Neji's arms clasped behind her. And then hesitantly embraced her.

His warm chest was against her cheek, and she could feel how awkward this was for him. He held her stiffly. But his voice wasn't cold when he spoke.

"It wasn't wrong." Neji allowed, after many moments of silence. He'd helped her up and walked with her, his arm around her protectively. He'd taken her up through the back stairways, away from the normal evening traffic of the house.

Up on the high east point of the house, he took her to the threshold of her private wing. The two guards there bowed perfunctorily. They were young men from a low rung of the clan. But a guard post for the clan leader was a decent position, one which would guarantee them good favor with the administrative offices in the outer wings of the house. A new clan leader meant that a new entourage of attendants, dressers, messengers, guards and personal servants would be formed, she may not automatically inherit her father's retinue in the same way she would inherit his ink stamp signet, his family crest and his private quarters.

Neji was the one who addressed them. He asked if there had been trouble, and the elder guard, a man of maybe twenty-five with short auburn hair and complex tattoos over his hands, said "There was an argument, but no evidence of a serious struggle." Hinata's hands twisted in the folds of her obi, habitually nervous. She had instructed the guards not to interfere, and she was suddenly worried that Neji would find out, and disapprove.

"I heard sounds of a struggle," Neji said, his manner turned quietly serious and taciturn as he always seemed in public. It was a bit of a shock to her after his softer words in private. "and raised voices. But things seem calm now."

The younger guard nodded. "Uzumaki-san and his wife argued with Uchiha-san, but now they seem to have settled their differences." He was more friendly, and even offered a brief encouraging smile to Hinata, though Neji was the one who had spoken. "They might be getting along better now." The elder guard grunted indifferently, but nodded his assent to this. And the conversation ended there, Hinata wondered if the younger guard sensed that she wanted to conceal her instructions from Neji. She hadn't told either of them this, but the guard seemed aware of the situation between Sasuke and his teammates. Or maybe this was obvious, as was her anxiety. He may have only differed from his companion in that he cared at all, while the other was only concerned about his professional duty to guard her life. But she felt better, and whispered a quick thank you to him as Neji escorted her into her private wing.

"Get some rest, you need to be ready tomorrow." he told her, but his gentle manner didn't return. She looked up at him, at his face edged in the warm glow from recessed braziers and candles lighting the way down the hall. It was difficult to tell whether they were any closer now, and she felt as she had for days now- too exhausted and fuzzy-headed to even know herself, much less anyone else. But maybe that was why she dared to behave so outrageously. She found his hand in the mingled folds of his long white sleeves and her ornate kimono silk.

He let her take his hand, squeeze it tightly, and he patted her shoulder- though she didn't dare to watch his reaction. So maybe something had changed. Maybe. He said a hasty good night, and she echoed the politeness- and then he slipped back around the wooden divider and into the main hall of her wing. She heard the heavier oak doors whisper shut on their oiled hinges. And then there was only the faint ruffle of hidden flames and the intricate pulse of sounds and chakra bleeding slowly from the far end of the hall, like the heartbeat and breathing of an animal spirit sleeping in it's temple shrine.

She had to go and talk to them. Acting on her worries and taking responsibility for things was getting slightly easier, now that she had done it a few times and none of her wild fears of punishment had fallen upon her. But it was still hard. It still felt like something she should not do. She might make mistakes. And then her father would be angry with her, and he would be more concerned about his bloodline. And the fact that her father was dead didn't join this chain of worries until she thought of him- his anger- and his blood.

And his spirit.

Maybe he had been murdered. Things happened in her clan, and in the secret rooms of this house. That was the polite way of speaking of it, if you did at all. Things happened. But his heart illness for the half year before had been real, it had been confirmed by both the Hyuga doctors and the senior apprentice to the Fifth herself. It was possible that both Hinata and her father had inherited a heart murmur from her grandmother, yet another Hyuga clan leader dead of a heart attack in her mid-forties, while still relatively young and strong. But there was also the matter of Neji's Fist, his chakra-laced fingertips, that had struck to the upper chambers of her own heart, seized the muscle- whether he'd created or just exposed the weakness there. Maybe it was both. Or maybe it was just conincidental, because she didn't want to think about her father beset by jabbing fingers, as if his illness had been crafted with the Fist. But it was all possible. It could be true, it wasn't as if she had reason to believe her clan was above any of this. It made her feel sick to contemplate. But it had to be left, she could only handle one horrible problem at once. And there was this last, necessary meeting.

They were her friends, and she shouldn't have felt nervous. Sasuke had patiently overcome her shyness, and now she went to him without worry that he would reject her or be bothered by her. There was no reason to worry. And this was her place of refuge, this bedroom. The only lit room. Here in the silence of her private wing.

This was the deepest and most secreted part of her private wing. All the paper doors were dark and silent except the furthest one, her bedroom chamber, where Sasuke had slept since she carried him home with her, a bloodied and heavy secret. She would have to tell her teammates, and the Hokage of what she'd done. She would have to tell her sensei Kurenai, who had been at times like a second mother to her and who's alert, soft red eyes would see immediately that something was wrong. Kurenai had intuited Hinata's guilty secret of a crush on Naruto, surely she would read the currents of attraction between herself and Sasuke. And then, with the beginning of a slow sinking feeling in her stomach, she was reminded that she would have to tell Sakura. About everything. About Sasuke. And Sakura's affection for him was well-known, it was discussed endlessly with Sakura's friend Ino while Hinata sipped tea with them, and tried to feel less out of place, even as she was glad to have girlfriends, like a normal girl, finally….

...Sakura was a friend, she was a protector, Hinata couldn't imagine being in a position where she might take a boy or a lover away from someone like Sakura. The idea that a man might want _her_ was ridiculous- or so she couldn't help but believe. She was shy and Sakura was so confident and interesting and knowledgeable. It was true, maybe, that Hinata was not so worthless as she had thought, she was possibly pretty and skilled in her water arts, and in her softness which was maybe useful under certain circumstances, but-

-she couldn't run away now. It _was _a bit improper at best, but she was inside the inner circle of their team now. She was friends with Naruto and Sakura, she was involved in some nameless undecided way with Sasuke, she was friends with all members, but not with all members together. She couldn't step in to the faultline of the fracture between them, that wasn't her place. But she couldn't turn away and act like it wasn't her business either. There was no polite set of manners and things to say for this, not that she knew of. She closed the shoji door that sealed this part of her wing, and turned. The waxing moon slice of her bedroom door glowed with lantern light. And with the wisps of voices she couldn't quite make out. Two mismatched parts of her life crashing together.

It was too late now. They were all highly trained ninja, they would feel the distant whisper of her chakra and even her silent footsteps, the energy spirals of her body would give her away, even as the low slots of light threw her shadow over the door like a blotch of fresh ink. And there was her apprehension, the quiver of her hand on the doorframe.

"She's coming. Ask her yourself." she heard Sasuke say coldly to one of them. She parted the door. They knew she was there.

--

At most he won himself ten seconds of silence. A handful of breathing room. The darkness outside gathered slowly as night fell over the cliffs and deep into the valley, and the high wooden shell of the village.

It didn't last. You couldn't hold off these two, they wanted their answers. They were lit up with six years worth of frustrated worries and anger and- _honestly_, he couldn't deal with this much recrimination right now. But he didn't think he'd ever be able to deal with it, not gracefully and not without this hassle. It would never be easier. Every part of his plan, every angle and facet and contingency in the careful sequences he'd put together in his head, pointed to this confrontation. It was like an abyss in the middle of a maze, all the circuitous routes lead right to it. It was always best to avoid an unwinnable battle. But this was unavoidable.

Ten seconds. They looked at him, momentarily too shocked to speak, or else just pushed so far by his behavior that they no longer had any idea what to expect from him. He looked back, and found that he could hold their gaze, now that he didn't feel like he was being dishonest with them. The facts were the facts. He considered acting aloof and indifferent, it would almost be natural with them, he'd always held them at arm's length, trying to protect them from the horror he lived with. They didn't need to know about the ghosts and the nightmares, even if he could have even begun to explain. And his mission was his own business. He'd never really meant to hurt them. He didn't even really _dislike _them, despite the jealousy and the guilt and his own inability to handle any of it without lashing out and shoving them away. But he _had _hurt them, that was the fact of the matter. And he owed them an explanation.

"..huh?" Naruto said, blinking. He was the same, his usual intent obtuseness surfaced right on cue. His strange charisma never seemed to help him be less intently dense about things. Sasuke shot a look of tired irritation his way. But he shouldn't have expected anything else. Naruto was Naruto.

"I'm back and I need to clear my name." he said, hoping that Naruto would get this basic point. He had so little energy for this. He really wanted a _drink, _frankly, but he didn't want to bother getting up to deal with the guards and the summoned servants. And these two might think he was running away if he left the room. All of this was aside from the fact that the old woman might cut him off, she'd made some nosy rumblings about him drinking too much. That would be just too much aggrevation at once. So he stayed put. But drinking seemed like an excellent way to handle this, he still thought that it might be easier to just get drunk with them. He sometimes could be less inhibited then, all his raw little emotions would be anaesthetized, and he'd feel nothing. Feeling nothing would solve this entire problem. It would help him look powerful and untouchable again.

Which was probably why Orochimaru had plied him with the drugs and the drinks in the first place.

And he felt worst about the lying. About the deception, the need to act tough and push them away and spit in their faces. It was too much guilt. He couldn't take this anymore. If you stripped the comfortable lies he told himself, there was nothing but the ugly truth of what he'd done to them. And to himself.

And nothing to do but let them take his hands, finally. Take him back to the village, to the start of the nightmare. The gates of the Forest of Death. Stop fighting, Naruto had said. Just stop fighting.

"….do you mean that, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura said guardedly, and he stopped watching Naruto stare at him, faced down her hard adamantine gaze. Naruto was the same, an older and more secure version of the heedless whirlwind of energy and dumb jokes and sunny optimism he'd always been. He was even glowing with health, which made Sasuke feel even paler and more sickly- and _shorter, _which was just insult to injury. But Sakura was different. He held her gaze, some part of him still could reach the protective contempt he'd held between himself and their friendliness and loud voices and pushy attention. But she was not the same, she'd lost that simpering way she talked to him, the way she flirted in that fakey sweet voice that seemed…

…so obviously not who she really was, like she was just acting the way she thought she was supposed to. Or that she thought he wanted- which was ridiculous, he found that drippy obsequitious stuff from girls to be confusing and pointless. It seemed obvious to him that he was too young to be involved with girls, and it was even _more _clear that this was an act Sakura put on for his benefit. Like so many other girls did. But they were more consistent with it, so maybe they really _were_ the frivolous little fluffy creatures of helplessness that he was allegedly supposed to want. But Sakura would bat her eyelashes at him and then turn and yell at Naruto like she was a demon possessed, so- _really. _He didn't understand why she bothered. And he sure as hell didn't miss that nonsense, but he could do without her scrutinizing gaze, too. He really had to do something about being _wrong, _her being _right, _and both of them knowing it.

Straighten up and fly right. That's what his father would have said. Get himself together. Get right with god, he could have chosen any of this trite little handful of phrases. He just couldn't take being _wrong _anymore. It was a vicious assault on his persistent goddamn _conscience. _And this annoying person who loved him needed an answer. He owed her an answer.

"Yes." He said to her shortly, but he kept his temper. "I'm through with Orochimaru."

It may well have been the other way around, Orochimaru being through with _him. _But never mind- he _was _through with this whole mess, the big picture of wrongness, and that was what they must have wanted to know. They might not have known about the particular mess with Madara. And that was just as well, Madara was something Sasuke preferred to _not _think about at all. Much less speak of. It was like calling a demon, uttering his name. The hold Madara had over him was almost supernatural anyway, it felt like a blood curse conjured up through illicit magic. It was bound up with his desperate loneliness for his family, and this demonic relative of his…

…knew that very well. And used it. And it was not something he wanted to show to Naruto and Sakura. This part of his life would stay hidden- for now. They thankfully didn't seem to know, or didn't bother to mention it. Maybe they knew Madara only as a faceless threat to the village. And another stupid grin had started to twinkle it's way across Naruto's face, the suggestion of fangs flashed from his white teeth. "I knew he wouldn't take your body," Naruto was gloating, back on his usual bullshit about Orochimaru. "I knew…" Sasuke was busy thinking of how, no, Orochimaru hadn't taken his body in _that _sense, in the transfer jutsu but- Naruto's hand found his uninjured shoulder, took hold of him and caught him in that rough half-embrace. ."...because I _definitely _was going to bring you back. I didn't even have to break your bones to do it!"

He couldn't be indifferent. The hearty slap on the back, the strong grip of Naruto's fingers twisted something inside him, made him remember. Not the fighting or the moments where they'd sort of gotten along. Or this strange fractured relationship that had floated between them like a comfortable ghost… that followed them faithfully and bound them together. Naruto and his stupid bond… But _stupid idiot Naruto_ was his friend. He couldn't forget that. The threat of a lump in his throat made him shake Naruto's hand off.

"I came back by myself, idiot." he grumbled.

"And you're staying?" Sakura pressed, her eyes still fixed upon him and her hands- not tensed visibly, but still held close to her kunai pouch, ready to gather chakra and wallop him one should he reach for the electrical clouds again, or fly into another rage. She was ready, and he could see Naruto's muscles poised to coil and spring. They were ready for any kind of fight he wanted to start. They were ready if he threw up his hands, too. They really did have him. So he bowed his head.

They probably didn't miss it as a significant moment of surrender. But he made it clear- he looked her in the eye, then nodded once. It would have to be enough to convince them. An elaborate speech of contrition was beyond him, and Naruto was grinning, and saying something stupid about how _some bastard _needed a hug, and Sasuke harrumphed, because he most certainly _did not _need a _hug, _nor did he want one. Or- _fine_- he would be sort of all right with one, but he wasn't going to admit that directly. And Naruto tackled him, almost shoved him off balance, Sakura's wiry strong arms circled his waist and both of them made a wrinkled mess of his pressed linen Hyuga robes. Their warmth and their closeness reminded him that he was not worthless to everyone, not _everyone _thought of him as the weakest link of the broken, defeated Uchiha clan. Not everyone hated him as much as he hated himself. It got to him. The two of them. Finally.

He was no better at lying to himself than to anyone else. And he was alive. Still. His heart whispered against theirs. "Dumb bastard," Naruto said with his easy affection. "You were just scared to come back 'cause you knew I'd kick your ass even worse than before! Admit it!"

"Naruto, don't tease him." Sakura groused, but the relief was clear in her tone and in the way she tightened her arms around him. "Sasuke-kun is tired. And Sasuke-kun, you put us through hell and I was worried! You'd better be through with that snake!" She managed to administer a soft jab to his ribs even through the crush of their bodies and tangled arms. He thankfully didn't have to say anything, hugging didn't require words. Maybe the embrace would speak for him. He got his aching, swollen hands around the two of them. He got the little spot of dangerous warmth in his chest under control, so he wouldn't say anything too embarrassing.

"The snake and I are getting a divorce." he muttered. "Let go. I'm staying. All right?" That was enough hugging and enough dangerous emotion.

"About time." Naruto said cheerfully, patting him hard on the back before stepping away. "Hey, what happened to the bow on your _ass? _And where's your Uchiha fan?_"_

This _idiot _clearly had a sick fixation upon what he wore on his ass, and why Naruto would be even _looking _at his ass at all was something Sasuke didn't understand. _And _it was a sageo, a samurai's woven sword sash and not a fucking _bow, _for Naruto's goddamn information. He'd find another moment to educate Naruto on this point, and also on the matter of Uchiha Tetsuya's triple fan crest, this idiot clearly didn't recognize it as Uchiha clan heraldry. But that would be something to pound into Naruto's thick skull later, he had a lot of other talking to do.

Sakura's sudden disturbing ability to drag information out of him was balanced by her other ability to make Naruto shut his big loud mouth. She put a stop to all the tense circling around the tatami mats, all three of them on their feet like there would be a first blow any second. She got them all seated together on the mats, the two of them facing him, and it made him think the worst might be over. The words had been said. And he'd made his admission. He watched the light fading over them from the windows, the section of a rapidly cooling sky that he could see. The sun was setting, out of sight on the other side of the house. Hinata's rooms pointed to the sunrise, now there was only the dark line of ceramic tiles arcing up into the main part of the house. There were the frozen curves and long slender bones of her bonsai trees turning the same deep blues with the failing light. Dusk was falling. Sasuke got up to find the matches in Hinata's teak dressing table. Sakura stared at him, he remembered a moment later that his casual handling of Hinata's things must look completely bizarre to them. But he did practically live here. He ignored Sakura's rapidly escaltaing incredulity, and Naruto's silent 'huh?' face. He lit the four lanterns. He sat back down without comment.

Sakura sent Naruto to tell the guards to have dinner sent up, and to see if they could find Hinata, if she was finished with the day's business. "So she's running the Hyuga clan now?" Naruto chatted away happily. "This whole bigass clan? Hinata-chan?"

Sasuke nodded sternly. But he wasn't untouched by the wonder of that, the scope of her inheritance. Hinata would be in charge of the entire Hyuga clan, it's vast wealth and it's hundreds of members. And maybe that would make things easier with the village. Or maybe the Hyuga were so influential that they had used the Hokage's office as a blunt weapon against the Uchiha. Maybe they were the cold hand that moved the village's puppet strings, Sasuke was unfamiliar with the Senju clan and their supposed link as the upper half of Konoha's uneasy clan marriage. Maybe they were controlled by the Hyuga. Or maybe the Hyuga had nothing to do with it.

But he kept this interplay of suspicion to himself. Naruto and Sakura may not know about the Konoha plot against the Uchiha. And- possibly- the entire story might have been invented by Madara, it wasn't as if Madara was particularly blessed with credibility. That was too many old bad memories for now, Sasuke had a lot of thinking ahead of him, and the interrogation- though maybe the ANBU would know something. They could at least clear the lies from his head. And that would be like the end of an evil spell, like he was under the dark wings of an invisible and oppressive demon. The curse seal had been so seductively persuasive, he hadn't realized how much it had muddled his thinking and stunted his will, not until it's strings were cut.

Sakura insisted on tending it. Reminding him of it's sting… and what it had been. What it had done to him. Orochimaru's most potent drug had been power. The false power of it's adrenaline rush, really. The absolute omnipotent feeling of confidence, like he could just burn or hack his way through anything that threatened him. It's bloody smear on his body was like an endless hangover. He thought about how he'd felt under it's sway, and grimaced. It had broken his line of decisions, pushed him and maybe moved him where he wouldn't have dared to trespass. There was a real motive question there. He sighed, letting Sakura indulge her apparent need to fuss and tsk and poke at him. Maybe he could plead insanity.

And it's torn pieces were still there in his flesh, though it's active chakra circuit was cut and it no longer functioned the way it should. But he could tell from the way Sakura cursed under her breath that it was still very bad. She knelt beside him on the tatami and he endured her probing fingers. He leaned back and let the wall support him. The warmth of the furnace had suffused the wooden frame of the house again. Sakura did something to kill the surface pain, but he could feel the poison skeleton of the jutsu in there. It wasn't just the pain of his inflamed shoulder joint. She was forcing the skin to close up, but the snake poison was still in there. In some final way, Orochimaru's teeth were still in his neck.

"It's not infected, it's the mark." she told him, slightly out of breath. She sat back on her heels and he saw the glimmer of sweat on her forehead and cheeks. "The flesh wound can't heal because the jutsu is disrupting the cellular processes. It's not going to poison you seriously, but the tissue is necrotizing, and those capillaries can't be repaired, even when Tsunade-sama cuts out the remains of the jutsu. It's…" she sighed, and gave him a mingled scolding and apologetic look. "…altered the chakra system in your arm. So when you cut the mark off, it started to disrupt your immune system, and normal repair of the skin and muscle and-"

This was a lot of complicated medical stuff and he wanted a straight, direct answer. He gave her a look that made this clear, and she said tersely "Sasuke-kun, I can force the skin to heal so it won't be open. But the infection is still in your arm, and it won't heal until Tsunade-sama can see you and fix it."

"Fine." he said, flat and indifferent. The point had been to get rid of the mark and Sakura seemed to understand that, even as she eyed him with worried disapproval.

"I wish you hadn't used a kunai." She dropped her gaze to the tatami, to her utilitarian, manicured hands joined in her lap. She meant _I wish you wouldn't hurt yourself this way, _though she did him the courtesy of not saying it out loud. She wished he was less self-destructive. She wished he hadn't nurtured his worst and most spiteful impulses and finally tangled himself up in them. She wished the same things he wished.

"I'm not leaving." he said again, hunching the one shoulder he could move. "Don't worry about me." She always made him feel like he was being an asshole to her, even when he tried not to. She looked at him with a slow set of resigned unhappiness on her face. She'd pinned back her hair, probably to help with her work. Sun and happiness and good living had brought a deeper tan to her skin. Her eyes were clear and bright. She was very pretty. He looked at her and wondered what it would have been like. She was smart. She wouldn't take one ounce of bullshit from him, either. She'd force him to straighten up. She was pragmatic, he wouldn't have to worry about handling everything himself. And she was married to Naruto, he'd never figured out how he actually felt about her, she was a completely safe thing to contemplate. She was so different from Hinata.

And Hinata was so different from her. Soft-spoken. Gentle and mysterious, in the different tenor to her silences and her few words. He missed her. She would be a great character witness for him right now, at least _she _thought he was a good person. Sakura knew too much. She was calming down now, working her way through her own doubts. It was taking her a moment or two.

"I _am _worried." she shot back, her eyes flashing back to his face, and then down to the wound. "We didn't know what Orochimaru was going to do to you."

"He didn't do anything to me." It was a lie, and a clumsy one. He had no particular talent for lying. But his guilt and his awkwardness were enough to cover it, he'd spent this entire conversation talking in guilty little cringes anyway. "I'm okay. I just need to be pardoned by the Hokage."

And he left it at that.

It was a conversation full of broken ends, no natural rhythm to it. Every word he said seemed wrong, so he thought he should stop talking. But Sakura hadn't forgotten about the matches. That hadn't escaped her notice one bit. "And you're going to stay with Hinata-chan?" Since he so obviously already _was. _And he should have seen this issue coming too.

"You're married to Naruto." he said, uncomfortably. He had no idea how _she _felt about him either.

"That's not why!" Fortunately she was as impatient with crap from him as she was from Naruto. He managed a mirthless fraction of a smile, and his hair was hanging in his face as he bowed his head, hiding his expression in the angle of the lantern light. "I love you- and Naruto loves you. We both missed you. We..." her tone was scolding, it made the words easier to take. "We both wanted you back, but not…"

And her silence told him more or less what the story was. He didn't know very much about childhood crushes, whether you got over them, whether you carried them into adulthood. Or maybe they matured into something else. He'd loved obssessively, but his love had convulsed upon itself and crushed it's spine into something more like obsessive fixation. It wasn't the same thing. Sakura, for all her yelling, was _not as messed up as he was. _She was normal- relatively speaking. He decided he couldn't really know how she'd felt. Or how she felt now. He just knew that she'd seemed more interested in having a competition with her equally loud friend. "I think you wanted something other than me," he said, and his hesitance made it come out in odd little pieces. She finally looked away from him, for the first time that day.

It wasn't gratifying at all. She wasn't ashamed, she just seemed pensive. She had turned slightly, and was looking down the hall after Naruto. She could probably see him talking with the servants from where she stood. "You're our friend. We love you." she said. "We just wanted you back. And we wanted to get you away from him. That's all. We just wanted you to come back to us."

He took her tone first for weariness, spent energy dealing with his resistance and explosions of temper. But sound magic revealed it a moment later as sadness. She must feel the same way Naruto did, unable to grasp why anyone would do this to themselves. _Why _it would ever be necessary. He shook his head and gave her the only answer he could.

"It doesn't matter now. I'm back."

She had thrown her arms around him before, when they were both much younger. And he'd sat dumbfounded and not sure what he should do, so unused to being loved or wanted by anyone. She hugged him with more grace now, as if she had lots of practice hugging wild, crazed teammates- and with saving lives, for that matter. Maybe she finally had come to see him as just another wounded person, another injured shinobi who'd limped into her care.

She wasn't kidding about all the protestations of love, though. She wasn't lying. It wasn't a fake act, she wasn't trying to impress or cajole him anymore. The strength in her arms whispered that she didn't need him anymore, either. She wanted him. It was a completely different thing, and she had a soft, warm voice, a genuine strength of will to her affection. It wasn't nothing, the way these two cared for him.

"Food's coming." Naruto announced, galloping back into the room and pushing the door closed with his flexible bare toes. "Hinata's on her way 'cause they saw her in the main hall or whatever, she's with Neji. And heeeeey, bastard, so what's this about you and Hinata? You're sweet on her? _Haha! _Look, Sakura-chan, he's blushing! Haha, you just totally lost your cool, I can tell you like her!"

That said, while he was glad they were there, he definitely wouldn't mind kicking Naruto in the face.

And it wasn't _really _their business, though they would butt right in. _That _hadn't changed. And they were Hinata's friends- _his _friends too, he reminded himself- so they would naturally want to know what was going on. Sakura got Naruto to sit and simmer down enough to listen, and then she started perfunctorily invading his private business. He gave her a long, sour look of disapproval, but she was undeterred. She wanted to know why he was here, at the Hyuga household.

He told her- a judicious editing of events. "I don't know what Orochimaru's up to. I remember that he-" it had been a beating, really, but they didn't need to know that- "disarmed me, and knocked me unconscious. After that, something happened. And I wound up here. Hinata found me in the forest." He looked hopefully at the door and the hallway beyond it, as if the servants would materialize and distract Sakura from this line of questioning. "I don't know what's going on. But I'm tired of Orochimaru and I'm staying here."

_Here _being the house, but also the village. Sakura was unfortunately also shrewd enough to pick at this point. He sighed pointedly, but indulged her. "At the house. If I can." he admitted. "If it's all right with Hinata's family. But she's the clan leader, so she can do what she wants."

"So Hinata-chan found you and took care of your injuries, but…" Sakura was talking contemplatively, as if mostly to herself. She twisted the heavy hem of her leather skirt belt between her fingers thoughtfully. "….you're going to stay with her now?"

He didn't know how many times he had to say this, but he sighed again and repeated, patiently. "That's right. I'm staying here. I like her. And she likes me." He fixed them both with an even, stoic look, as if he were proclaiming the letter of the law. It _was_ simple, after all.

He should have been more prepared for their consternation. But he couldn't have imagined how they'd react, he didn't know much about how they were connected to Hinata. They both looked at him like he had two heads. It shouldn't have shocked them _that _much.

But maybe they thought he wasn't good enough for her? Or they worried that she was too gentle and kind, and he'd be rough and careless with her, or that he couldn't really love another person, or… well, he wasn't very confident about any of that himself, was he? He didn't want to talk about it, he couldn't be sure if he could withstand much scrutiny. And it would be too humiliating, he'd like to keep _some _of his dignity.

"But…" Sakura looked baffled by this, a little frown on her face, and maybe she just found it too incongruous. It didn't look as if she were jealous, or that she feared that he'd be some kind of horrible mean bastard to Hinata, but clearly this was coming out of left field for her. She blinked, and it annoyed him, this was _not _her business. They were owed notice that it was happening. But they were _not _owed a detailed explanation, nor did they have any business acting so _surprised. _He was going to have a hard time keeping his temper if they didn't stop gawping at him that way. Luckily Hinata was coming, he felt her closing in, somewhere behind the walls and paper doors and the outer circle of the lanterns' light.

"She's coming." he growled at them, shooting Naruto a warning look in particular. Hinata's soft footsteps were in the hall, and the gentle waves of her presence were approaching. He was attuned to this now, like there was an ancient hint of the byakugan in his eyes. He could feel her instead of see her, her approach whispering through the walls. And she would be better at explaining this, he thought. She was a girl. And girls knew about these things. "I've told you what happened." he told them summarily. "You can ask her yourself," He was short on patience and it must have come out even more ill-tempered than he intended, Hinata opened the door, heard him, and looked at him with something close to terror.

Which was _not _the impression he wanted to make on these two, that Hinata was _afraid _of him. But even beyond the need to just _not _look like a completely out of control crazy person for once, he saw that she was upset. It wasn't just _him, _either. It was something else. Probably that Neji asshole. She needed to be comforted, and he was _not _used to being comforting in front of an audience. But to hell with his dignity.

This was more important. "It's all right." he managed, softening his tone a bit so she wouldn't worry. "Naruto's just being stupid. " And Sakura was poking her nose into his business, but never mind. He held out his hand for her, and her eyes jumped nervously from him, to Naruto and Sakura, to his bandaged, swelling fingers.

She was still dressed up like a silk doll, at least five more kimono layers than were necessary, all kinds of wooden hardware in her hair. She was still being shoved around by her family, and he really had to step up his tactics in terms of protecting her from them. Her eyes were pink-edged from crying. And hesitantly she stepped forward.

She turned to close the door. Her hand was shaking badly, and he saw that her body language was closed tightly, like a locked ivory casket. Some Hyuga piece of garbage or another had been at her for certain. But at least he could put his arm around her and comfort her. And maybe these two nosy busybodies who needed to shut up and mind their own business could comfort her too.

And she did seem comforted by it. The shaking and fear faded from her like a cloud falling away from the sun. He was _not_ a romantic person who thought this way, but she seemed that graceful to him, that supernatural, like a crystal clear sharingan memory. But this one was someone who he could actually have, someone who'd actually want him back. She was uncertain, but she came to him. She acknowledged him in public, in that small way. She took his hand.

And it meant everything.

"Hinata-chan, so you like this grumpy bastard?" Naruto said tactlessly- and ignored the acid glare Sasuke shot at him. "See, he's all embarrassed and his face is all red! He's got a crush on you for sure!"

"She already knows I like her, you _moron. _Clumsy dead-last _loser. _Shut up._" _he hissed at Naruto, but Hinata was watching Sakura, she wasn't bothered by this. She looked tired, and the last thing she needed was more arguing. He buttoned his lip. And Sakura at least had a grip on her manners.

"Please come in, Hinata-chan. I've called for dinner. We can eat together, okay?" she said encouragingly, thankfully able to smooth this over a bit, and make this meeting a bit less excruciating. He would have been grateful to her if she wasn't _pissing him off. _But Hinata smiled weakly, and she let him pull her down to sit beside him.

"It's… true." she said shyly, when they asked her the same question. "Um… I like him." She glanced at him for encouragement, and he nodded.

"And I like her. Understand?" he reiterated to them stonily.

And it was something that other people knew now, not just a secret liaison between them. Or an illicit little drama that her family tolerated. Or yet another scrap of approval that he wanted, but would never get, that would lead him into these sick little agreements with scum like Madara. He wouldn't be that alone now, it was something that existed in the outside world, almost like it was real.

Like it was real.

Maybe it really was real.


	19. Starfields

"That isn't how you really feel..."

Hinata said this quietly, nothing more than a whisper in the warm semi-darkness of her familiar bedroom. She watched the anxious twiddle of her forefingers in her lap. "...is it. Sakura-san."

Sakura had sent Naruto out of the room to go help bring the food up. She'd efficiently browbeaten Sasuke into doing the same, Hinata watched him scowl, glare at Sakura- but comply. He seemed to do it just to avoid any further yelling from her. Sakura had squared her shoulders at him and she'd gone a few millimeters into her own forceful growl. _Sasuke-kun, go help Naruto please. _

_Please_, she said, but it wasn't a question or even a request. Her tone said- _do it. Now. _Something passed between them, some wary exchange of glares and secrets. They reminded Hinata of two jounin circling one another, eyeing one another's weapons and weak points. Sasuke made his irritation clear, and she was struck by the change in his manner, his eyes and the ice that suddenly underlined the few words he did say.

She had seen it before. He'd been just as cold and angry, just as silent and dismissive when she'd finally worked up the courage to face him. He'd sat on her futon, not very far from where she was right now. A winter sunrise was behind him, gold and icy pink against snowy grey, edging the elegant planes of his cheekbones with soft light. Then, anger had seemed to lend her strength to not be cowed by his black glare. She had felt the rightness of her position, she had to protect her house. And maybe it was different for her then, because he'd been a stranger, someone easily reduced to a simplistic threat. There was no particular affection or relationship with him then. But he was Sakura's friend. He was Naruto's _friend. _He spat little curses and insults about them even when he was alone with her. He was coldly furious now, even as he said he would return to them.

Sakura's shadow fell over her, Sakura blocked out the lantern light and she took the brunt of Sasuke's sudden, viciously sharp glare. It was a look that would have made the hair on the back of Hinata's neck stand up. The electrical, oppressive, intense force of his presence, his chakra.

And his anger. She had not been truly afraid of him that morning. But now...

He was a different person with them. Hinata watched him from the floor, from behind Sakura as she stood and barked orders. As she enforced her will- and the hard angry look that he got on his face then was somehow different. She had thought she understood... a _little_.. of what was going on. They were his friends. They wanted their friend back. And he...

...she had no real idea what _he _wanted, or how he felt. He'd averted his eyes and changed the subject- and she'd let him. She feared being too intrusive and pushing her way into a delicate situation that didn't involve her. Sakura took charge and had Sasuke and Naruto to leave so that she and Hinata could talk, and Hinata realized this. But only as Sasuke pulled the door closed behind him, and with far more force than was necessary.

He'd said things like- _that clumsy useless loser- _about Naruto. He'd said- _she needs to shut up and mind her own business and leave me alone. And stop encouraging Naruto, she's just making everything worse- _about Sakura. He cursed and insulted and spat upon his friends. His _friends. _His friends! And if that was how he felt about his _friends..._

She stared at the dissolving subliminal trail of temper and fury he'd left behind. She realized that Sakura had noticed her stare and her distress, she closed her eyes. She wanted to rub them, like maybe she hadn't really seen what she'd thought she'd seen.

She'd thought...

...that he was kind. And maybe he was- to her. But maybe there were parts of him she just didn't know yet, and she had to admit that she didn't really know him that well. She had only known him at all for one intense but short handful of days. Two weeks. Less than that. She had never seen him with other people. Or with the parts of his life he'd run away from. She had only the vaguest warning about what was going on between him and his teammates.

An idea- and a warning. That she should stay out of it. That she should not interfere. She should _not _push him on this subject. Let him change it, let him mutter the vicious little words to himself- _that useless loser! _His friends. His anger was too powerful and intense for her to even look at. It would freeze her to the spot and stop her heart. Stay out of it. Don't interfere. _He has real problems, Hinata. I know you want to help him, but you can't. He needs professionals, he'll hurt you, he'll ruin your entire life-_

Beware.

--

Dusk fell. He lit the lanterns. Nighttime was not the threat it had been. The ghosts shied away. The nightmares seemed to scatter, maybe there really was something to this love business after all. He looked up past Naruto and Sakura's heads, through the sectioned panes of Hinata's window, up to the hard white glow of the moon there. It was a waxing slice, just a short curved dagger slash of light, not the baleful cold eye of the new moon, _Tsukuyomi, _the indelible memory and flashback trigger of _the night. _

So he was probably safe. There would be no undignified panic attacks, no ghosts waiting for him down darkened halls, no one waiting in the darkness with a wet blade. The sky was glassy, cold with sharp star points. It was completely different. And there was breathing room, there were a few days of separation between him and the last really bad encounter with the ghosts. The power outage had fizzled away into the normality of the electrical lights, the candles and the braziers, the Hyuga main house was lit up like a Christmas tree all around him. His delirious vision of Orochimaru, the rustle and grip of coils, the hissed threats, it seemed like it belonged somewhere else.

And had happened to some other person. He no longer felt the subconscious slither of snakes under his skin. Orochimaru blithered on about the root chakra, it's coiled snake, the sexuality of it and the brutality, but sleeping with Hinata had not awakened anything venomous and repulsive in him. He had not turned into a fanged rapist himself, so it was actually starting to look like Orochimaru had been entirely full of shit. _What a surprise. _And the last panic attack had climaxed in a sincere effort to shatter Neji's spine over a reinforced steel railing- not such a bad thing considering- and that had been some days ago. Since then- peace and quiet with Hinata. Things could be worse.

He'd even told these two busybodies how he felt about her. Simple- he liked her. She liked him. They'd taken it with stupid disbelief and a lot of nosy questions, but the words were said. He was not ashamed, anyway. It was normal to have a girlfriend. Or whatever. He may have to ask her formally before the title was official. He didn't know how people went about becoming properly linked as boyfriends and girlfriends. But he'd figure it out. It couldn't be that difficult. And he did like her. Naruto and Sakura could look at him with that dumb look of consternation all they wanted, it didn't change anything.

And if they were waiting for him to put his hand over his heart and recite love poetry before they believed him, they shouldn't hold their goddamn breath. He liked her- there was really no need to dress it up in a lot of romantic bullshit. He'd put up with some of the bullshit maybe- later, alone with Hinata, a few drinks under his belt- see if he could please her and make up for being depressed or pissed off most of the time otherwise. Or both. But never mind. She liked him back. You didn't need to sing any stupid love songs about _that. _

And her warmth and her hand in his and her closeness calmed him down. Maybe if Naruto and Sakura weren't right across from them, he might have leaned his head on her shoulder, kissed the warm, delicate skin at the nape of her neck, the hollow of her throat. He would have taken all the wooden hairpins out of her hair- slowly, undressed her with the same methodical slowness. He would have liked to see the ghosts try to get at him after that, after she'd gotten her soft hands under his clothes and he'd taken her to bed. Or maybe he could have just pulled her into his lap and done it right there. He worried a lot less about hurting her if she controlled the motion, and if she straddled him that way. The guards wouldn't bother them, they could be alone and happy and-

-really, the key problem here was that they were _not _alone.

And Hinata was crawling with tension beside him, her hand was shaking in his. He eyed Naruto and wondered if he dared to kiss her, put his arm around her, even _touch her. _Anything beyond that simple chaste handholding- and to think that he should feel ashamed, that he should feel that he couldn't- it pissed him off. These two. Inhibiting him. It annoyed him enough that he decided he didn't care and put his arm around her anyway.

Which drew a whole new annoying reaction from Sakura. A heavier look of slow disbelief, like she was watching something that just didn't make sense to her. And Naruto, his obtuseness, his bluntness, his wide-eyed dumb look- Sasuke wasn't sure which one of them he was _more _annoyed by, they were really outdoing one another.

He said he was staying and they still looked at him that way!

_That _way. That watchful, vigilant eye they both kept on his hands and his body language. The way they talked and tried to act normal, but it never quite reached their eyes. He could tell they'd smile and hug him- but they wouldn't turn their back on him. They wouldn't let their guard down. They acted like he was an enemy, like he was an opponent, _like he'd tried to kill them-_

-which he had. So never mind. But it _pissed him off. _He came back and he met with them, he surrendered and now here he was. This was what they wanted. It should be enough for them!

He didn't know how to give them anything else. He didn't know how to fix this- he was so tired, the admissions and the surrender had burnt up too much of his patience. He put his other arm around Hinata, embraced her. The flower scent in her hair tickled him. Her warmth soaked into him. Her heartbeat and her breathing, her anxiety quivered through his hands, she was so undeniably _alive._

They were watching and he could tell he was pushing it- he didn't care. Hinata was tense- embarrassed. But as he folded his arms around her and pulled her against him gently- she moved slowly, she melted against him. He smelled the faint traces of peony crushed into the folds of silk, the last smudged remains of cosmetics, the familiar heat of her flesh. She let him cuddle her, comfort them both. It could make his head spin, this feeling and this closeness.

But at this moment- this was a territorial gesture. Orochimaru had taught him all about those. _Mine. _He might as well have said that to the two of them. _Mine and not yours. _

They were her friends but there was a curling smoke signal, a little hint, a forgotten whisper of intuition in the back of his mind. A little tremor of sound magic suspicion, the way she said his name. _Naruto-kun. _She said _Sakura-san, _but no _Naruto-san _to go with it. It was significant, and under that significance was a deep well, something hidden in her tone. Sasuke was damned if he was her _friend. _Just her _friend. _No- you didn't say the name of a friend that way. He may have been a filthy reject from a destroyed clan, but he was _not _a fool, thank you.

So he let himself do it.

And when he looked over at Naruto to see how he took this, Naruto was frowning in that fixed way he had whenever Sasuke was telling him to get lost and just let him destroy himself in peace. That look of intense concentrated determination. Sakura was frowning too, her physician's look of worry and concern and disapproval. And under that, the wordless, shocked look of sadness that he'd seen, many times before. Something he never wanted to interpret too deeply, it was too hard on his conscience and the reactive powderkeg of his guilt. So forget it, he thought. Look away.

Hinata at least seemed too exhausted to do much but lean against him. Having made his point, he took a moment to comfort her properly. "It's all right." he breathed against her ear, far too softly for the two nosy onlookers to hear.

"...I'm okay. I'm.." she whispered, and then she wanted out of his arms, she wanted to sit up and try to smile and pretend that things were sort of all right.

Which maybe they were- for her. She wasn't the one under a microscope being poked at by inquisitors. She was guiltless. But he let her go, none of this was her fault. If she had to see his ugly secrets, then the least he could do was shield her from the worst of his temper, make sure none of it got splattered onto her. He perfunctorily pined back a bit of her elaborate hair that he'd knocked out of place. He made sure she was all right more or less, then simply took her hand again and faced his teammates.

He had actually meant it, that he'd rejoin them.

...sort of. It seemed like an idea. But it was far enough away, behind the complicated hundles of the ANBU and Hokage's office, arraignment and interrogation. _If _he got through all that, then he assumed he'd rejoin them. There was really nowhere else to go. The vague fantasy he'd had of being of such noble blood that he could be a bakufu minister for the government, or even a samurai retainer of the shogunate-

-had been shattered, Orochimaru had taken him out of the countryside prefectures he'd grown up in, he'd gone to the capital and seen the Tokugawa samurai, the wealthy merchants, the Left Minister to the shogun in his silk robes, idly throwing around money to amuse his concubine. And the money that the minister flashed boredly was more than Sasuke or his father, or even _Hinata's father _could make inside of a year.

Be a servant in heaven or a ruler in hell. Crawl underground with Orochimaru, into the darkness and pervasive creeping mist of antiseptic and mold that never really went away. Under that, the bleary smudge of death and blood and terror. It was the wrong kind of question to ask, the wrong way to imagine power. This _idiot _here had been right. This idiot didn't need to know that yet, maybe only Kakashi could tell Sasuke that he'd been warned- and Sasuke would take it. But not from Naruto.

Not now, anyway. Maybe after the ANBU. Even an ANBU interrogation chamber was starting to look good in comparison to Orochimaru's snakeholes. After that, the village of his birth was like a damned paradise.

Annoying people or none. He'd thought maybe he could become a ronin, fake his documentation of birth and sidle in to the employ of a fat lazy merchant, a strange country too far out of the way for Orochimaru to bother, maybe set up a little martial arts school there to teach sword forms and self defense to even lazier children. Something like that. But he hadn't wanted that. He hadn't wanted to start over somewhere new, or to stop being a ninja.

Or to leave them, it seemed.

Which had always made these confused little run-ins with Naruto so excruciating. It would have been nothing to him- nothing more than the energy it took to spit in Naruto's face, shake him off, maybe hurt him enough to _make _him have to retreat- if it really had been a matter of being through with them. Of _never _wanting anything to do with them again. It would have been no problem. And maybe Naruto would have seen the absolutely certainty in his face, his manner. He wouldn't have contradicted himself here and there- unable to pull the trigger, stamp Naruto's life out- almost like he was hoping against hope that Naruto would follow. Naruto would have realized that Sasuke was beyond saving, Sasuke was a lost cause. Naruto would have just let Sasuke commit slow suicide the way he'd wanted. But no- Naruto had to save him. And he defeated himself, he had to give Naruto these little reasons. Always- even when he stood above them on high. Even when he was so close to fully deluded and under Orochimaru's sway. Even then. And now, despite himself, here he was. _Because _of himself, his indecision. Some grand cosmic joke of his indecision and Naruto's dogged, stubborn determination. Here he was- saved.

Pissed off. Because they would want some kind of explanation of his contradictory behavior. And he was out of patience for admission and humility. He was here, it should be enough. But everything that had worked before was made for the dynamited cliffside, the deep footwaters of the Valley. It was all about denying and pushing away, so when it came time to come close again he had no way to do it gracefully. No matter what he'd have to admit fault. And it would be too much for even _him _to sit on Hinata's tatami mats, scare her more and cuss out his friends, act like he didn't want to know them, like he didn't give a damn about them, like being cruel was some sacred way to prove how much _better he was than them-_

-like Orochimaru, telling him he had to hold down the little girl while she was tortured, telling him he had to do it to prove he was strong and cold-hearted. And if he said he wouldn't do it then that was saying he was weak, and was saying Itachi was right, and was saying that when the girl died he might be taking her place. He'd been in the grips of the snake for too long and learned nothing but survival. And now that the snake was gone, going back was a struggle. There was going back in body, but going back in mind was the worst. He'd tried having bonds and friends, and run away from it before he could master it.

So now it was late in the game. There was no way to do this and look superior.

He didn't like the idea of Hinata being there, but it was unavoidable. It was her house. She'd even said that to him, that little inflection of possessiveness- _my _house. _My _family. _My _friends- but she'd never actually said that one, had she? Because she though they were his friends. She had to see now, she had to know what was going on before she consented to do _anything _with him.

Even hold his hand.

He wondered where they were going to go with this. Sakura looked like she had a question or twenty about his relationship with Hinata- and _his relationship with Hinata _wasn't exactly _any of her goddamn business, _was it? No. Glaring wouldn't help shake her off. Questions would just embarrass Hinata, who didn't seem like she reveled in the idea of airing her private love life to them either. But Sakura got another idea- she sent him and Naruto off on some flimsy excuse, and he had no patience, he didn't want a full-on standoff in front of Hinata. He somehow hoped that he could get out of Hinata finding out about that scene on the exit road, and that moment when he'd just taken a disinterested killshot at Sakura's neck. Maybe if he was _really _lucky-

-but never mind, his luck was horrible. It always had been. He grabbed Naruto's arm and yanked him out of the room. Naruto snickered- but there was an edge to it. Everyone was on edge.

Getting _out of that room _was nice. Hinata would be fine with Sakura.

Out into the broken darkness of the hallway, the light of the main foyer of the wing ahead of them far to the right. Naruto pulled his arm away. And he didn't say anything. His face was lost in the darkness, all Sasuke could see was the faint halo that light made of his spiked head in silhouette. Naruto wasn't really talking the way he usually did. But what was usual for him now? This could be a completely new person. Sasuke was on his guard himself, gunshy of all these hidden knife edges in everyone's voice. He followed- Naruto in front of him, Naruto's hands were he could see them, no turning his back on Naruto. They passed the guards, new ones. A smaller one that was too goofy to be a threat, a tall redhead with tattooed hands. The redhead looked harder, and Sasuke had seen this guard in particular give him that fixed, hard look before. But the guard said nothing. Sasuke lead Naruto away, he knew his way around this house well enough to find the kitchen by now.

But the Hyuga were around, they were going to bed but they weren't there yet. They weren't staying up all night- small fucking _mercies- _but they were in the halls, they were sitting in warm lit rooms walled with paper that bled out the light and their voices, the crossdraft of their white glances.

And they couldn't seem to not find him _interesting, _he stuck out just by virtue of not looking the way they did. His darker hair, his wild spikes, his jagged red-black Uchiha blood. And if Naruto didn't look anything like them either, well, maybe it was less personal to them. The old woman had said that the Hyuga clan's hostility to his Uchiha bloodline was only coming from a handful of troublemakers. He had taken guarded comfort from that then- it was true that most of the white-eyed stares were only mildly curious, as if he were an exotic zoo animal, a circus freak- something. But it was annoying. And it was _unnecessary, _if most of these Hyuga had indeed once had close ties with Uchiha clan like the old woman said. They should not be staring as if they'd never seen a Uchiha before.

The old woman was a bitch and he still didn't like her at all, half the time. But she was not a liar. He'd give her that much. The Hyuga had sat around and smoked in silent pools of candlelight, as if they really were carrying on an extended collective conversation with their ancestors. Now they lazed about the same way, but their voices were lighter, there was something else in how they looked at him now. Or maybe he'd been too angry and threatened to see it before. Maybe their mood was different. The Hyuga were coming out of the woodwork now. Saying things.

Trying to get his attention. _Oh, it's the Uchiha boy. That's the only one left. _And _look at him, he looks just like his mother. _Talking idly amongst themselves- and it _was _annoying, because people should just mind their own business and leave him alone. But no one was spitting on his bloodline, not that he saw. Their voices were conjuring the lost three hundred.

Three hundred and sixty-two. Maybe these gossipy Hyuga even knew the exact number. The back of his neck prickled with heat, but he didn't glare at them. It seemed like it might blot out their voices, the life it gave to their memories. To think that _he _wasn't the only one who remembered his destroyed clan, and that the faces blurring in his memory, time steadily driving space between him and them, it didn't mean that they would cease to exist when his own memories blurred fully. When he could no longer recall their faces at all. The memories weren't only his- others remembered. The clan had actually existed.

Though sometimes it felt otherwise. He was only one person. And he was young and inexperienced, he had his skills and talent that were still a faint whisper in the crushing howl of a hostile and overwhelmingly complicated world. Hatred had only carried him so far. He was too startled to speak when the Hyuga man stopped him. A complete stranger, the name he gave meant nothing to Sasuke. He was middle-aged, maybe the same age as his uncles would have been. He said "Hey son- come here."

And "Your mother was a good friend of my sister." And "Your grandfather was a tough old bastard, but I respected him. He wouldn't let me and your uncle get away with anything, couldn't lie to him, he'd know. Couldn't say anything earlier, but the order of silence is over and Hiashi-sama's up in the sky now. Figure that he and your dad just couldn't let the other win, you know? Hasn't been the same here without you Uchiha around. Good thing you're back, we were thinking that we'd lost all of you."

_We _being the Hyuga clan, the family, from the way this Hyuga said it.

But this was too bizarre, Sasuke could only mutter some fragment of his own manners, some proper thing to say when approached this way by another noble clan member. It was too disorienting, he'd gone too long being surrounded by climbers and murderers and people who would go over him with magnifying glasses for any hint of weakness. He couldn't speak- he just said something by route and kept walking.

He even forgot that Naruto was beside him for a moment. And that was _fatal, _Naruto saw how uncertain he was. He remembered too late- caught the mirrored uncertainty on Naruto's face. And then Naruto smirked, and punched him in the arm. _Hey bastard, you're just losing your cool all over the place today! _But behind that, sound magic's divination, there was a nervous vein of anxiety in Naruto's taunt. Because what if Naruto made these usual insults and Sasuke actually _fell apart? _What if he broke down? The threat was there, he felt it. Naruto could feel it too. Vulnerability was terrifying, you had to douse it with insults and teasing and just try to exorcize it away before it could come to light and humiliate you both.

"Shut up." Sasuke mumbled and hunched up his shoulders. He studiously glared at the polished wood floor as it unwound a handful of paces ahead of them, and as lamps and overhead lights bounced their liquid glare off it's glossy surface. The veins of the wood stretched in endless twisted cables.

He would have thought that Naruto would take this as a warning, he'd back off and maybe they could just walk in silence? No such luck, and Sasuke told himself sourly that he should have known better. Naruto couldn't shut his mouth to save his life. And if that was how they'd become friends in the first place, Naruto's terminal inability to _shut up _and _leave him alone _and just _not care, _be put off or driven away by even the most venomous insult...

...never mind that, Naruto was _annoying _him.

"Yeah, like that's _real _hard to do.." Naruto said idly, and only the surface of his voice was casual. "Thought you weren't running away anymore."

It wasn't worth responding to.

"Said you were staying. So why're you running away still?"

It would also be _nice _if he could pretend he had no idea what Naruto was talking about. Or if he could lie convincingly about it.

"It doesn't mean anything." he muttered in Naruto's general direction. Meeting Naruto's eyes was an option, but he declined. He studied the world around him instead. Wood, polish, paper, shine. Cold factual reality. "There's nothing _else _for me to do. That's all."

Whether it was a lie or not was suddenly less important than whether Naruto could tell. He got a half-snort out of Naruto. Under it- an uneasy scrawl of silence, uncharacteristic and probably something he should have taken as a warning.

"Bullshit." Naruto finally concluded, but with a notable lack of conviction. Sasuke relaxed his shoulders smugly, he had the advantage now. Naruto could be pressed on the strength of his will, then. Sasuke could imply that wasn't completely committed, prick Naruto's pride over his determination. He should have realized that it wouldn't exactly be difficult to emotionally manipulate someone who pinned his heart to his sleeve, someone like Naruto. He was too open, too easy with his feelings, they were right there and exposed to any needles you wanted to shove into his tender points. It was disgusting how easily Sasuke could do it. He could derail this entire little talk. He could decide whether he wanted it to even _continue, _much less if he wanted to bother to answer.

And his silence spoke for itself.

"That's bullshit. You won't admit it."

Naruto, trying to goad him into replying.

"You're still trying to run away!"

With a noted lack of restraint and control of his voice and how loud it was, how the ringing sound of it bounced off all the bare polished wood. Sasuke winced, hidden sufficiently in the shifting points of light to actually changed expression.

And to lose patience with this whole endless goddamn argument. "That's right. I'm running away right now." he said icily. With what felt like lifetime's worth of stored, venomous sarcasm.

"Then stop saying you don't want to be here." But this idiot couldn't keep the waver out of his tone. He really _wasn't _sure. He probably did all of this just on the steam of his thoughtless stupid impulses. He just had the demonic burn behind it to power them, to never have to acknowledge reality, to never have to stop and _think. _And anyway, Sasuke had _not _said that.

And he informed Naruto of this point, as succinctly as possible. Every word he said felt like part of an admission. He'd already made that admission. Or maybe there were layers and levels of other admissions he'd have to make, negotiating his way back to friendship with this person who was probably, frankly, now a stranger. Assuming he even wanted that.

And there were Hyuga in these halls, he could feel them breathing behind the layers of paper, already settled down in their areas of the house for the evening. The line of candles gave way to closed doors and their warm white glow of light thorough paneled paper. The subliminal suggestion of voices under doors and through walls. Ghosts, he thought. The ghosts used the sounds of night and rest, the breath of sleepers and the limited alertness of those still awake to give form and volume to their soundless, voiceless imprint. Their eyelessness- and yet he could feel their collective gaze on the back of his neck. Like their hands- which was both not a hand, not a physical _anything, _and something that was beyond the physical world and it's limitations, something that could go through walls and walk through even the most airtight guard he tried to construct. And he would _not _shiver, there was now too much light to conceal it.

Naruto was still arguing. "You did too say it. You.. whatchamacallit.. _implied _it."

It was so beneath his dignity, he decided, to score little verbal flesh wounds on Naruto for not knowing the word, not knowing it instantly, perfectly, using it with the same perfection. Naruto wasn't someone who needed to be perfect or even _tried _to be. That was pointless. _Stop this. _It was a thought that he paused upon, turned over, considered. Repeated. In his head, soundlessly, as Naruto tried to talk to him and he deflected Naruto like it was a fight after all. _Stop this. Stop fighting him. _

But never mind that. _No _more admissions. Get to the _point._

"I didn't," he said with pointed over-precision, "_ask _you to do this. This is your fault. You got what you wanted. Stop bothering me."

_Stop this. _But if he _could _stop, he wouldn't have gone even that far. There was a part of him that indulged in this pointlessness, there was a part of him that watched and wanted to call an end to it, and the usual part of his nature won. Maybe it was Naruto's fault for even trying to talk, fix this, Sasuke had never claimed that it could be done. There was an empty space where there would have been screaming and stupid taunts and the usual scuffle, whether it got really serious or not. There was just not anything to put it it's place. This was _not _Sasuke's idea, this was _not _Sasuke's doing, and this was not his fault. _Stop this- _but this idiot just didn't fucking _quit._

The idiot had the audacity to unroll his stupid mocking laugh instead of answer with actual proper words- or just shut his mouth, which is what Sasuke would have liked. "Haha." Naruto jeered.

And Sasuke blocked with his own bored silence. Not even worth a response. Not worth taking that bait.

"It's funny."

"Don't even bother."

"What're you-"

_"Don't."_

Silence.

The handful of seconds, it was all you could hope for. Some subtle change of breath from Naruto that might have been a sigh, maybe if it had come from a person with an ounce of reflection or impulse control. Someone who actually thought without gearing up his mouth before he could even begin. Someone who Sasuke couldn't so _easily _destroy in his own mind, character assassinate, render wrong and useless and out of line, besides. Naruto's tone turning softer, no struggle or taunts laced through it now. Dangerous.

"I don't get it."

"Of course you don't."

"I don't _get _why you're doing this."

Dangerous waters. The first thing that sprung to mind was _you never got it when I almost killed you either._

And _maybe I should have._

And _next time I will- _it was time to end this, right now. He'd let it go on long enough. Naruto was fighting his silence again, stuffing it full of words like he could construct a conversation between the two of them, do it single-handedly, he was babbling something about how Sasuke needed to cut it out, or else _Sakura-chan _would _kick his ass. _

"Sakura can't do anything. You can't do anything_. _Neither of you can force me." Sasuke spoke swiftly and icily, and when he heard Naruto trying to shoot back some useless answer, he cut Naruto off completely- "Shut up. _Shut up. _Stop talking. Leave me alone."

It was not a calculus of who was right, he maybe didn't have to fear being wrong. He didn't have to accept anything, maybe, any sense of admission. His surrender could be conditional. It wasn't about who was right, it was about who could defeat the other. Who could shut down the conversation. Who could control it. End it. Hammer it down to nothing.

And who could collapse those last few seconds where they were alone, to make sure nothing could be said. The kitchen lay in a more central part of the house, one overrun with servants and retainers and assorted Hyuga at all hours. Sasuke had his hand on the double doors that sealed it off and gave Naruto the space and privacy to even try, he was opening it before Naruto could even recover from that. He spared one cold look - not at Naruto so much as the direction or the space that Naruto stood in.

"I told you it couldn't work." he said.

He cast the doors open. Sounds of movement and voices and activity, two or three Hyuga passing through on their way to another part of the house. He was striding off towards the kitchen and the light and activity there before Naruto could even shut his gawping mouth.

--

It wasn't something Hinata said- out loud- right away. _You don't really feel that way. _Usually she was polite and she would nod, smile. Sakura was her friend. It was hard for her to have friends, she still thought she was slow and clumsy with it. She never was as quick and vivacious, ever, she never was as bright and optimistic. She never had their sheer force of _presence. _But they made her feel warm, like she was able to stand within their corona. They never made her feel that she didn't belong there, or they didn't want to see her. Or even that they were just tolerating her out of pity, which she still couldn't quite fully believe. But maybe they actually found something interesting about her. They _did _give her strength. They seemed to want to be her friends even though she didn't understand it.

She wiped her eyes, she knew she couldn't just be a soggy mess of tears and ineffectual nothingness. She could still feel the last traces of heat from Sasuke's arm as he'd held her- casually, like it was just _normal _for her to have a... well. A _boyfriend. _He did it like it was nothing.

It wasn't. Sakura knew it too. Sakura knew Hinata had never had one before. She'd told Sakura about it, and Sakura had helped her, and given her advice, and held her hands and told her that she was sweet and that a boy would be lucky to have her. Hinata had smiled, and not had to force herself- much. She still couldn't have faith, not enough. Neji was the kind of person who was worth something, and who would be naturally wanted by so many others. And Sasuke was that sort of person too. She was not. Maybe she still was too dark and depressed, even Naruto had once thought she was... Well. A weirdo. Shy and weird. Like there was something wrong with her. Maybe she should have told Neji that too, that she really had no right to cast aspersions on Sasuke, to act like there was something so _wrong _with him. Not while there was so many things wrong with her.

Sasuke had spoken to her softly, but she'd felt the tension in his body when he pulled her against him. She'd seen the tight stiffness around his eyes, just the tiniest little knotting of muscle. But he wasn't okay, not really. Maybe nothing was okay.

"Hinata-chan, is everything okay?" Sakura said in fact, leaning down to kneel beside Hinata. She'd made a gentle joke about how she'd hug Hinata- but there were all the hairpins in Hinata's hair, and she might knock some of them out. Sakura was like that- warm, she was nice to you and you believed it. But Hinata couldn't smile this time. She nodded...

...but it wasn't really true. She looked down at her hands, remembering the ice water and Neji's cold skin under her fingers. It wasn't enough to just nod, so she managed to say: "I...think so." But she didn't sound like she even believed herself, so Sakura's worried frown diffracted into cleanly outlined separations of concern and suspicion and worry; and the same hard authority she never seemed to really lose, something that was more of a blunt instrument than Sasuke's precise, focused glare. But Hinata understood, she wasn't being convincing. She couldn't- and maybe she shouldn't act like things were simple and settled. Sakura shifted her balance to lean in more and her bare skin slid on the blue silk that covered Hinata's shoulders. She sat down properly, folding her legs under herself, and then leaned in to whisper.

"Are you sure? Hinata-chan, what's going on? Where did he come from- and what happened?"

Everyone was hugging her like she was too weak to stand on her own. But it was like with Neji, she couldn't feel insulted or condescended to, she just wanted the warmth and the comfort too much. It was a bit easier, as long as Sakura hugged her and she could whisper and not really have to _say things _aloud, not the way she would have with Naruto and Sasuke both in the room with them.

Sakura asking her questions like this, both her and Naruto's attention, the fact that they even _did _take her seriously enough to ask made it easier to distill her cloudy thoughts down. Sakura would know- she'd wanted so much to tell Sakura, to just pick up the phone and do this. She whispered "...It's true. What we told you and Naruto-kun is true. I found him in the south woods. I wanted to bring him to you but I was worried about the ANBU, and I didn't want them to take him away from you-"

"..take him away..?" Sakura repeated, hushed in the warm circles of lantern light they sat between.

Hinata pressed ahead anxiously "The ANBU might torture and execute him because he's a missing-nin, and I didn't want you and Naruto-kun to lose him. I wanted to call you but there was the ice storm, and-"

Her voice was rising like the note of a boiling teakettle, her anxiety was getting out of control. Sakura hushed her and tightened her arms. She might have been hushing a small child. "That's okay, I understand, I think Tsunade-sama can help, don't worry about that.. okay? Don't worry, but what about...?"

"I don't know.." Hinata blurted, she knew immediately what Sakura meant even without hearing the question, the pause and intake of breath that marked it was enough. "I don't know what happened, I didn't even know him."

She hadn't. He was in her academy class. She knew his name, but it was the name of a stranger. He was a distant figure of excellence, someone so far out of her daily life or what she could hope to be herself that she didn't even bother to notice. Her attention was worthless, after all. She didn't join the other girls cheering him during taijutsu drills and shuriken practice. Someone like him would never even exist in the same place as her, never breathe the same air, and this was so clear to her that she didn't even think twice about it. His beautiful face and body, his amazing talent, his spotless record of excellence and his absolute ability to master anything- swiftly and confidently- she might as well have been watching a movie star or a celebrity on television for all that he would have to do with her. This was so clear, not worth noticing. "I didn't know anything about him." she whispered. "I just knew that you and Naruto-kun wanted him back. And that you missed him so much. I just wanted..." To give him back to them. To finally have something to give them for their friendship. She hadn't thought twice about that either. She'd just rushed ahead and done it.

Breath eased out of Sakura, her arms tightened slowly. Her starched white hospital coat smelled of detergent and recent sweat, of the strawberry shampoo she used, and the harsh soap the surgeons cleaned their hands and equipment with. She was probably thinking about something that was private to her and her team, some part of it that wasn't for Hinata to hear. Hinata was being seized as much as she was being cuddled, Sakura and Naruto were so caught up in this, it was _everything _to them. "I'm sorry I interfered." she whispered finally. Sakura shook her head firmly, her hair slippery and making a thin rustling against the silk collar of Hinata's outer kimono. The metal of her Konoha leaf struck the enamel end of a hairpin.

"It's okay. It's _okay. _I'm just glad he's back." Sakura's whisper had turned hollow, like she couldn't really pretend herself any longer, not even for Hinata's sake. "At least he's _back. _He was off with that _Orochimaru, _he could have gotten killed out there. And he's not a bad person, he's just a kid like you and me, Hinata-chan. He grew up _here _just like us. And he went to a place like _that_- can you even imagine? He's so skilled but I just couldn't bring myself to... I couldn't rely on that, it doesn't matter, someone was going to kill him out there, I was so..." She shifted, Hianta couldn't see her expression, just feel the quiver of air in her throat. "We thought... We weren't sure he was even _alive."_

And Sakura meant that this was the most important thing, that he was alive, that he'd survived, that he was back.

That this made _everything okay._

Hinata knew she should keep quiet but this was her friend, she couldn't lie to Sakura.

"It's okay no matter what's going on... as long as you're okay too, Hinata-chan. We can't even thank you enough for.."

"..but that's not really how you feel." Hinata said heavily. "Is it, Sakura-san?"

--

This complete _idiot._

Naruto was jabbering away at the kitchen staff-

"Hey, can we have some ramen too? Like maybe dessert ramen? What do you _mean _there's no such thing, what kind of a chef are you? Haha! And no I don't think that bastard over there should have anything to drink either, he's grouchy enough already! Sakura-chan's fine and the mission was okay, and Hinata-chan's okay too except for the crying part- oh, and I wanted to tell you, I got a letter in the mail from ero-sennin's publisher, they want me to take over writing his series but Sakura-chan said that I was too much of a perv already- _haha! _What? Haha, that's right! He's always like this! And he totally won't admit that he's glad to see me, can you believe that? Even Hinata-chan knows he's lying because he's so bad at it! He's even trying to act like he's too cool right now! Haha! Isn't that right, bastard? Anyone ever tell you that you might have, like a drinking problem to go along with your _face problem- _I mean your grumpy face problem, but that's funny, you do have a dumb frown on your face! _Haha!_ Oh, and Kimiko-chaaaaan, did I tell you about the _bow? _He used to totally dress like a gay hooker and he wore this _bow on his ass, _and Sakura-chan and I knew it was just because he was being dressed by the gayest man from Konoha- not that there's anything wrong with that! _Haha! _But he totally was PMSing the last time we saw him too and I said-"

-_unbelievable. _The damn ninja girls were there, yammering back at Naruto and laughing and encouraging him! The old woman was just standing there calmly, cutting up vegetables like Naruto wasn't being an intolerable horse's ass, doing _absolutely _nothing. Sasuke leaned against the wall by the door and atomized the entire room and all present with one of his best glares.

No one cared. Naruto kept looking over at him like he was supposed to find this shit _funny, _the old woman kept giving him _that look, _that slow patient look of bemusement, and _goddamn _he was going to have to pound the crap out of _something, _and very soon. He clenched his fists and his bruised knuckles wrenched. He grimaced. He let his hands unflex again. But _some idiot _needed a pounding. One kick in the face wasn't going to be enough.

That ninja girl- and he could never tell them apart- looked over at him with bright, irritating amusement. The other one giggled behind her dish-gloved hand. He stared back coldly.

Unfortunately, he could tell the old woman would have a completely unreasonable attitude about him just seizing Naruto by that blond mess on his head, and then smashing him into the knife rack by his _face_.

And once they'd gotten the damn _food _and Sasuke had dragged the loud idiot away from his goddamned _audience, _he had to help carry things and not just take one of those satisfyingly heavy bamboo trays, wait until Naruto looked down and exposed the top vertebrate of his neck, and then just aimed and-

No. No shattering Naruto's neck and driving bone fragments into his spine. This would upset Hinata. Though the detailed fantasy that Sasuke assembled in his head was not nearly enough to make up for _that. _

So he walked in terse, icy silence instead. He pulled aside shoji dividers with pointed force. The heavy oak double doors that subdivided the wings _accidentally _got slammed in Naruto's face.

And Naruto stopped laughing, the undertone that hummed under his silence got louder. Progressively. They passed back through the halls of sleepy Hyuga again. The wells of light that seeped through the closed paper walls were fewer now. Naruto said nothing, and Sasuke found new ways and muscle groups and little flexions of worry to tense and seize up together. The stupid _jokes _were bad, the words at _all _were bad, he didn't want discussion. He didn't want silence. _Nothing _could make this feel right. Not even kicking Naruto's legs out from under him and shoving him down the stairs, throwing him through a few paper walls, none of the usual calisthenics. He flashed upon the memory- unpleasantly- of limping up the hospital stairs to the roof, trailing Naruto, jagged with adrenaline and fury, minutes away from using a lethal technique, in all seriousness. There were the usual handful of excuses about how he hadn't been thinking correctly, he had been angry, the curse seal- But _no._ There just _was no solution. _

"Bastard, nobody's angry with you but _you_."

A sneaky undertone after they'd passed the guards in silence, opened the paper walls to Hinata's wing and Sasuke had shifted the trays in his arms to reach for her door. He'd opened a seam of light between the doorjamb and the wall. There was no time left to respond. Naruto had stepped back, having whispered roughly against his ear.

--

An intake of breath from Sakura.

When someone hugged you like that, you couldn't see their face but you could feel little twinges and reactions that you might have missed, not even a trained ninja could catch every flicker of movement another person made. So much of it was involuntary- or hidden, and Sakura covered her distress well. There was a brief exchange of uncomfortable questions, Sakura edging around the subject- _what do you mean? _and Hinata trying to say what she meant and still be polite and ignore all these things that shouldn't even be mentioned. Sakura understood and there was finally the half-beat of silence. Caught in her arms and safe, Hinata looked down at the acanthus leaf scrollwork on her topmost kimono, and the way the coils of long bobbed leaves bent and bunched in the folds of silk that fell around her and out onto the tatami mats. "It _is _okay." Sakura said. "I mean it. I just wanted him back. It doesn't matter."

But she'd had her crush.

"I did." she said distantly. "But when he was gone I just wanted him back, even if he wasn't _with me. _When you lose someone that way..." another firm shake of her head, she was recovering her steadiness. "It doesn't matter so much _how _you get to have him with you, or why he's with you, or if he's your friend or your boyfriend. I used to... But when he was gone I stopped caring because the important thing was just getting him back."

"But don't you love him..."

"We both do."

"No, I mean..."

"I did but he wasn't around." There was a catch in Sakura's clear voice now. "I did- but you can't be in love with someone all by yourself. And while he was gone, I fell in love with someone else."

"Is it like that..." Hinata whispered. "When you fall in love and it's real, you don't have your crushes anymore?"

Sakura sighed. "Hinata-chan... I don't know. I just want you to know that it doesn't change anything. My marriage doesn't mean I've given up on him, it means I'm more committed than ever. We both love him. And I don't care how I get him back, or how that love works. We just love him and you shouldn't even worry... Hinata-chan, you should feel proud of yourself." A final squeeze around her ribs. "You've had a hard week anyway. Go a bit easier on yourself, okay? " And Sakura drifted into the subject of Hinata's father, that she was sorry that he'd deteriorated so fast, that she and the Fifth had been sure he was making good progress and his heart condition was stabilizing. "You shouldn't even worry about me and Sasuke, you need to take care of yourself! I can tell _he _hasn't been sleeping, but you shouldn't be pushing yourself either-" Sakura scolded, her tone light with affection. "Naruto and I know what to do. And Kakashi-sensei's coming too. It's going to be _fine."_

The situation, the responsibility, the burden of secrecy was being passed into other hands, people far more capable than Hinata herself. Sakura had hugged her carefully, but it didn't matter, her hairpins were still falling out. Together they pulled them out completely. Sakura straightened the desk chair, some accounting books and scrolls that had somehow gotten knocked from Hinata's desk and scattered. Hinata saw that the little roll of papers from her academy class was among them, but she just turned her head. She lined up the hairpins all ornament-up, pin down, and put them in her stained maple jewelry box, neatly over the small amount of bracelets and necklaces there. She had never worn a lot of pretty things, she'd never really thought of herself as _pretty _anyway. The jewelry box was jarred a bit from it's usual position, aligned with the top of her vanity. She hadn't noticed it when she'd come in, but there was a lot of disturbed paper and furniture in this corner of her room. There must have been a struggle after all.

But Sakura said it was all right and she could be cheerful about it, so it probably was.. "It wasn't a big fight. It was actually really small by their standards." When Hinata asked hesitantly if this was normal for them, Sakura nodded. "...they always are like that. Kakashi-sensei says it's how they express affection for one another.."

Sakura smiled, her eyes down and to herself, not for Hinata's benefit.

It reminded her of how it had been. She'd watched Naruto- and beside him was Sakura, pink and rosy and pretty, fresh-faced and so smart and brave. Beside Sakura, behind her, somehow aside from them was a third person, a dark-haired boy that Hinata never seemed to notice. She'd seen them, from afar. Another genin team passing her own boisterously in a crowded street.

Or the tense, noisy atmosphere of the chuunin exam and the genin gathered there. Sasuke had left the village far before she'd become friends with Naruto and Sakura. And even now, she'd never brought up her crush with Naruto. And probably Naruto didn't really know how to talk to her about it, he'd never mentioned it either. Even if Sakura knew and Hinata knew that she did, Sakura never mentioned it directly. She and Naruto stepped carefully around Hinata's feelings, and Hinata didn't know what to say, she had no idea how to even get into it, once they were _married. _She'd only become close to them after the wedding, after the last mission where she and both of them had gone over many day's travel to retrieve Sasuke. She'd stood at the place where Sakura had pointed to wet stone, the place where Sasuke had fought his brother. All of this had gone on and she'd never had to mention it.

So it wasn't something she mentioned now.

But Sakura's smile had evaporated. She watched Hinata out of the corner of her eye, assessing Hinata along diagnostic medical scales, trying to figure out if she was all right. Meaning, of course, if she was safe with Sasuke, if the relationship between them was all right, even if the relationship was _there, _if it wasn't some misunderstanding...

..but Hinata really had no idea what Sakura thought, and couldn't even hold her gaze. She looked down at her hands and the ragged lacy patterns calluses on her fingers made, like thick woven patches on soft lines, marring the whorls of her fingerprints now. Like the intense taijutsu training was changing who she was, and that change was happening.

"It's okay, Sakura-san." she said softly.

"Sakura-_chan, _Hinata-chan." Sakura's voice was gently teasing. This was something she'd said many times before, and Hinata somehow never felt comfortable enough to go along with it. "Come on, I'm not a stranger, right?"

Hinata nodded, but didn't look up. Her hair was unbound and twisted strangely from the hairpins, it fell heavily against her cheeks. "I think it's okay." she made herself continue. "I think... he likes me. And I like him. I think..."

"Then that's a good thing." Sakura said, still trying to warm Hinata up with her own cheerfulness. And now it seemed more genuine. She seemed convinced. Hinata glanced up, and Sakura was tilting her head slightly, she'd heard a snatch of voices from down the hall. They were very skilled ninjas, both of them, but neither of them were being stealthy.

At all. A moment later Hinata heard the high edge of Naruto's voice, the sound but no words. Sakura had heard them coming first.

Of course she had- she knew them much better than Hinata did.

--

"You know why they sent us for the food, it's so they can talk about us when we're not around. Geez, don't you know anything about girls? I thought you were all cool and popular."

Naruto had said that, before his little ambush. _Nobody's mad at you, bastard. _No- Sasuke didn't buy that one. That was bullshit. Naruto had timed it just right, just as Sasuke was pulling Hinata's bedroom door aside. Maybe just to get back at him for slamming the wooden doors in his face. Or maybe not. Sasuke spared one quick look at Naruto, weighing his manner. But no- this person was a stranger now. This was a Naruto he no longer had perfect control over.

If he ever had. But in the past he could tell when and where to push, when to back off. He had an idea of how much of Naruto's bluster was real, and where he was just being sloppy, where Naruto actually meant it- because there was an enervated piece of his heart in some stupid insult, some offhand remark. Something about the flash of his eyes just then-

-but no. Sasuke didn't know anymore. He concentrated on getting the trays down, the food sorted out. He coldly informed Naruto that he was too clumsy to help. Naruto sat down, talked to the girls. Or to Hinata, because Sakura immediately came over and started to impose. No, they couldn't have the rice and vegetables first, they had to have the miso. Sasuke had only been in charge of cooking for himself for close to twelve years now, but clearly that wasn't enough to avoid this patronizing attitude. He got the miso doled out and the bowls distributed. Then he sat back irritably and let Sakura do whatever the hell she felt had to be done, _however _she felt was necessary.

This wasn't a good idea. _This- _the four of them together, in the same room. If he couldn't talk to his teammates normally, then he certainly couldn't talk while being watched- worriedly- by Hinata. He sat beside her, and didn't say anything. Naruto and Sakura talked- to Hinata. Hinata talked back. It was clear that Hinata could feel his silence like it was a vicious insult to his teammates- worse, probably. But_ he _had no idea of what to say. What did they even want from him anymore? He was someone else now too.

Someone they didn't even know anymore. So Sakura and Hinata talked about the ice storm, and Naruto insinuated his loud chatter. They talked about Naruto's missions and Sakura's patients, Hinata's students. Maybe they worked themselves into a simulation of comfort and relaxation. Maybe there were enough people talking and no one missed his voice.

Until Naruto misread the atmosphere and started up again.

"So how come you aren't talking?"

"Nothing to say."

"Yeah, but-"

"I'm here and I'm staying. Leave me alone."

"Then how come-"

"I'm _tired. _My shoulder hurts. _Someone's _bothering me. I'm not leaving, I've told you several times now. That's all you need to know. Shut up."

It seemed to be enough. These sharp, bitten off little lectures. But Hinata didn't like it, he felt her close up beside him, a subtle cringing in the way she looked down, pulled her elbows and knees a bit closer to her body. And- away from him. Like she wanted him to _stop this. _Now. Just..

...but if he _could, _he would have by now! It wasn't as if he was _enjoying _this.

All of this was just a blatant lesson in what he knew already. Naruto and his bonds.. well, Naruto had _no _idea how to fix this. Naruto never planned for anything, he just bashed his way ahead. And now even Naruto must see that this was a damaged half-dead relationship between strangers. Naruto and his bonds, his _bond _which was supposed to be the answer to everything. Well, that bond was like the translucent cables of artificial resuscitation. The tatters of a friendship that was maybe never that strong in the first place, maybe could have never survived, _anyway, _and it was only Naruto's foolhardy insistence that moved it's heart and lungs and animated it in the first place.

Sever that bond. And Sasuke had said- and more than once- _it wasn't that I couldn't sever the bond with you. _Maybe he should have never admitted it existed at all. Maybe he should have just let Naruto think he'd imagined the entire thing. The trees under a yellow late-year harvest moon. Scattered memories of training. And missions. And some stupid, weak, maudlin point in his life when he'd stood and fought to save Sakura, to preserve their team, when he'd thought this was what he wanted-

-and later when Naruto split his lip with a jarring right-hand punch. His piledriver of a fist, and his sloppy delivery, Sasuke saw it coming and didn't bother to block. He just took it. And he spat blood on Naruto's face. And then he told Naruto how it was, how it had all just been stupidity. Weakness. Self-delusion.

It was so easy to fall back into that.

There was enough space in the interplay of their conversation for him to watch Naruto, watch Naruto talk to Hinata and to Sakura, and the way his tone shifted, the way he was so relaxed with them. Naruto didn't notice and he didn't shove his blue laser-stare in the way. So Sasuke could watch freely, and wonder if there really was any way to take all that back. He knew that Naruto would probably barrel ahead, he may just bully the friendship back together the way he'd bullied everything else he wanted into existence. Maybe Sasuke would have to do nothing. And maybe the ANBU would help, they'd get him cleaned up and torn neatly out of Orochimaru's web of puppet strings. Maybe it was best to just stay quiet, not say anything, let Hinata talk to her friends. Watch. Say nothing. They were so damned _happy _together, it was disgusting. It was a spotlight on what was wrong with _him. _

And finally they wore themselves out.

It was early morning, by then. He'd had enough talking. He'd had enough being _around _talking. He'd gone out into Hinata's little stone garden to get some fresh air, to get some space in his head from the insistent jabs of Naruto's voice, Sakura's- that way that Hinata looked at Naruto that was gnawing at him, just a little.

And the Hyuga were always going on about suns and stars, that sort of thing. He looked up into the glassy sky, saw the haphazard spill of white pinpricks. Hundreds of thousands of white Hyuga eyes looking down, or the silent regiment of Uchiha ghosts, their eyes turned invisible and therefore lit in his peripheral vision, his mind's eye, with ultraviolet light. The wind was restless and picked at his hair, worried at the edge of his loose Hyuga clothes. Behind him was warmth and lanterns and their endless voices. But here there was some space to hear himself think. None of them seemed worried, their conversation didn't halt. He heard his name, a few offhand comments about how it was all right, he just needed some air. The sort of polite nothings he might have muttered himself, if he ever bothered with such pleasantries. No one bothered him. He wouldn't have objected to Hinata, but she was obligated to stay with her guests.

And when someone finally did step out onto the stone, the brush of their clothing, the sound of their footfall, the slight wisp of antiseptic on the air told him it was Sakura.

He frowned slightly from his perch on the stone bench in the far corner. He was turned away, the heat and light at his back. Sakura had once deferred to him- and he'd never much liked that, it seemed too cloying and obvious. Now she didn't seem to think he could take a damn piss without assistance, she was on him about the damn _seal _and now she was back- yes, exactly for that purpose.

"Sasuke-kun? Are you feeling all right?"

Sound magic spelt out the constellation of compassion, of concern, something other than sheer nosiness on her part. He liked her sureness and practicality better, but she needed to learn something about boundaries. _His _boundaries, anyway.

"You're not my doctor." he said, and didn't bother to turn and look at her. Let her figure it out. Neither of them seemed to understand what _leave me alone _meant. It was like they took it as a suggestion. _Maybe leave me alone? If it's all right with you could you leave me alone? _Honestly.

"I'm the only doctor present, and I need to-"

She needed to monitor his condition. She needed to poke at his seal wound again. She had to be a pain in the ass- it was her job. If he kept complaining he might get a lecture about the Hippocratic oath and her duties- he had no patience for it. "I know. Hurry up and do whatever you have to." he snapped. He just wanted some peace, this was a lot of _people _in a very confined space and for a long evening, he'd gotten very used to being damned-well _alone. _ His Hawk team bitched and was insubordinate, but they _left him the fuck alone, _they knew to obey when he asked for it.

He heard her sigh of impatience. "I'm just trying to keep you from going into shock. That seal was dangerous. I can't believe you cut it out."

He really didn't have time for this commentary. He held still when she told him to. He let her pull his collar down his arm and resolved to not shiver in the cold night air. Goosebumps were unavoidable, out of his control. Her fingers pressed at the sides of the wound, clinical and precise. The afterburn of her chakra, the strange icy feel of it. "You had Hinata do it, didn't you?" she said. It wasn't an accusation, but it still wasn't any of her business.

"That's between her and I. Stay out of it."

He wondered how Sakura even knew that, it wasn't like it had been with the old woman, who'd known there was no one else around, that he'd been alone with Hinata at all. But maybe Hinata had told her, girls talked- to one another. Even he knew that. And how much did he know about girls? Not much.

"A ninja made these cuts." Sakura was saying. And then, just to rub it in, he thought "I can tell you didn't, no one could do this to themselves."

"Doesn't matter." he told her. "You're lucky I'm allowing this."

"...don't do me any favors.." she muttered under her breath. "Jerk."

And it was not the Sakura he'd known, not even the one who'd stopped staring at him wide-eyed, who'd suddenly balled up her fist and come at him. He'd seen _that _Sakura a few times, all right. But this one, her anger...

"We're trying to help you and you're sulking."

He was _not. _Fucking. Sulking. No.

"You married someone else." he snapped, he'd meant for it to be the stony, granite voice of his father, the iron hand of god slapping the whole conversation down, pulverizing it. But it was just his own usual anger. Less justification than he usually felt, too. He had admitted... somewhat.. that they were right. That he wanted this. But he couldn't stop. "You married _Naruto. _I told you, you can't stop me, and I _told you- _it's my life and not yours. No one can tell me what to do with it. You need to mind your own business. I don't owe you anything. _You _and _Naruto _decided this. I told you to stop and you didn't listen."

She had one hand on his other shoulder to help with her balance during the healing jutsus, and her fingernails dug through his jacket.

He'd said plenty of cruel things to her before. Mostly out of irritation more than any real dislike. She was too loud. Or she was doing that fakey kiss-up thing. She was asking him questions that he didn't have a good answer for, like _why don't you stay, _and anyway- it wouldn't be difficult to just snarl something cutting at her right now.

As if he hadn't just done that, anyway.

And _now _he was going to get a lecture for certain. He sighed, his shoulders deflating under her grasp.

But instead something even worse happened.

At first he thought she was just holding still and quietly planning out the next healing jutsu she was going to use. Or maybe she was talking herself out of saying anything, getting into an argument with him. It seemed like they'd both dodged and disengaged from arguments with one another all night. And that was fine with him, his patience was thin for her pushiness at the best of times. He needed time, he needed to know who the hell he was dealing with.

But she didn't say anything. And there was only the sound of distant voices down in the courtyard over the ceramic arm of the roof and it's gable. The warm murmur of voices from the room behind him. The slow trickle of water through the circulating pond at his feet. And then a warm splotch of wetness on his bared shoulder. Then another. Finally the telltale choking sniffle from behind him.

He hated making girls cry, it always made him feel like such an asshole. It was worse when he didn't really mean to hurt them, and that was most of the time. There was some sort of basic human warmth that other people had, and he never seemed to be able to master it. There were theories in those scrolls that Orochimaru had given him, anecdotes about children who were broken in childhood and then never grew back together properly. They carried their fractured psyche far into adulthood. And, anyway, he had to do something, because if Sakura went back in and Naruto saw that _his wife was crying, _then that would be a big fucking _fight. _And Sasuke wanted to go to bed, he was tired of people.

Countermeasure, he thought. _Now. _He could apologize, but _no. _He could tell her to stop sniveling- which would probably earn him a smack in the back of the head. He could then grab her hand, snarl at her to _never do that again, _and break her wrist. No- nothing good would come of that. He could tell her he hadn't meant it. But he had. He was staying, he wasn't leaving, but he'd told them both that already, and it didn't seem to matter.

"Hinata has tissues." he said after a moment. Given that Hinata had essentially been crying nonstop for almost a week now, of course. And it staunched the hemorrhage of the silence with _something, _dumb as it was. It sounded even more lame said aloud than it had in his head.

He heard her sniff and breath raggedly, but when she spoke, her voice was almost clear. "Don't tell me you're staying. I've heard that before."

He frowned, he didn't like this new insight of hers. "Then there isn't a problem." he said flatly. "I don't know what you want from me if that isn't enough."

Her hand unclenched, but never seemed to really relax. She just removed it from his shoulder, her blunt nails scoring the linen. "I guess we shouldn't expect you to act like you want to be with us at all." Her tone was as flat as his. She really had changed. Something about her had lost hope, begun to expect the worst.

It didn't feel good, hearing that he was hurting them. Knowing it vaguely was not as bad as direct confirmation. He sighed, and relented, "I'm not used to you anymore. And I don't know what Orochimaru has done. I've told you this. It will be different after the ANBU are through. Until then, bear it." And don't take it personally, he thought. But maybe it was personal, there was damage along the line of that bond, he wasn't going to disrespect her by lying to her about it.

"...I guess when I dreamed about this moment, I thought it would be different." she said tiredly. Her tears were still wet and cold on his shoulder, and blotted messily as she pulled his jacket back into place. He held completely still, even his breathing controlled and flattened.

_I told you so. _He thought. But he did her the courtesy of not saying it. It was too late now anyway. He said nothing, and he looked up at the stars, tried to figure out why anyone had ever thought there was any order to them, any order to anything. Everything was just out of control. Sakura didn't say anything either for a long moment, and then she said she was cold and went back inside. He waited, idly watching the bubbles in the pond and the way each glittered with a tiny curved reflection of the lanterns behind him. Then he went back inside, and secured the sliding glass door.

Hinata looked over Naruto's shoulder and saw him, her gaze gently met his, he saw the cooler white color of her eyes, that never seemed to warm up, even when the incandescent lights turned every other surface, flesh and paper, a warm gold. "...it's morning already?" Naruto announced unnecessarily. "That sucks. Guess we should get some sleep."

Hinata nodded, and murmured that of course Naruto and Sakura could sleep here, she'd have a futon prepared for them in one of her guest rooms down the hall. Sasuke watched Sakura make the proper polite demurral, Naruto dozily loading his arms around both of them, leaning between them with his stupid messy hair swaying as he leaned unsteadily. And Hinata insisted, just as softly, Sakura got on the phone to Kakashi, there was a short conversation. Sasuke watched the curl of her fingers over the white plastic receiver. _Yes, he's here. Fine. He's okay. We're okay too. A little bit, but no one was hurt. No other fights. No, it's not a big hurry. I don't think he's going anywhere. Get some rest. _Kakashi had been on his way back from a mission. He had injuries, mild from the way Sakura explained them in passing. He was going to catch a few hours sleep. And then he was going to come over to help.

They exchanged final good nights and then they looked at him for the same. He just turned, he felt too numbed out to speak.

And heard Hinata making hasty excuses for him. And Sakura assuring her just as quickly- it was okay, they were all tired. Naruto's voice revved itself up to that sunny cheerfulness again, that stupid joking tone. He always seemed to _need _to be that way, like he just couldn't handle what was going on otherwise. Sakura started taking control of the situation and he just could walk...

...away... to the lip of Hinata's closed frame of windows, to the garden out there, the stone and water and strange bonsai trees washed out in the spilled light. Most soft chatter behind him, and then Naruto and Sakura were taken off to their room. He was alone for a few moments, the room empty behind him, refilling with silence, like constant company could empty that silence out, require it to accumulate again, slower than before. Then there was the familiar soft footstep into the room, and Hinata closed the door.

"I thought they were your friends."

Hinata had a soft voice, even when she was saying things that should have come out as hard accusations. All the words had rounded corners.

"...you're so..."

Everything she said softened the edges and top note of a pointed demand. He turned. "I'm so what?" he asked, though he couldn't do the same, everything _he _said came out with an edge like a broken bottle.

She bowed her head every more, so that her face was entirely in the warm pools of shadow. "You act like you..."

But she clammed up, he couldn't drag another word out of her. The little connecting glance, when she looked up at him, her eyes like glimmers of ice in the darkness, like the memory of the day after the ice storm. He knew she had buried away something she was determined to _not _say. And he didn't want to hear it, either. He didn't want to have her on those firing lines.

"It doesn't involve this." he said. He was not going to say _us, _but then he thought that he should. There was no room for uncertaintly. "Not with us. It doesn't change anything."

"That's what Sakura-san said.."

He declined to ask exactly _what _Sakura had said, he'd heard enough of what Sakura had to say.

Hinata sat down tiredly at her desk. Her long kimono sleeve fell over the back and down to her knees. At least all that crap was out of her hair, he was getting tired of seeing her overdressed, too much paint and glitter. They probably meant it to be elegant, but she was so soft and delicately colored. It was like a geisha's painted face instead, too much white and blood red, the look was all wrong on her. Her hair was twisted back from the pins and he wanted to run his fingers through it. He'd only wanted to do that since he'd first saw her, saw the thick locks cut like precise satin ribbons.

And had done so, plenty of times. But now he hesitated before going to her, touching her. So much of her was still a mystery to him. She could have just been tired. It could have just been stress and grief. But...

But since she had no intention of going into it further, he put her room back in order. First all the cushions that had been scattered, he hated messiness. Disorder without- too much mocking reflection of the out of control mess that was his _life_. One of the pillows had a perfect impression of someone's back and shoulder pushed into it. Too big to be either of the girls, so it was Naruto. He grimaced at it, picked it up and shook it back to it's usual shape. Her silence had become so quietly absolute that it was pressing the oxygen out of the room. "It doesn't change anything." he said again, head bowed to his task.

Sakura's tears still on his skin. An echo like an inkstain. They'd taken so much from him without complaint that he'd gotten used to that- was he to decide now that he didn't need them? That she was being presumptuous, even _assuming.. _assuming he'd _give a damn _if they had nothing to do with him. If he lost their friendship. He was so used to the transaction of hurting them and them just always _being there._ He was removing every trace of them from this room. That wasn't his intent, he was just trying to restore order. But his idea of order restored always seemed to be a picture of himself alone, untouched by anyone else-

- a dock, maybe. The water and the sky and him, no one else, one human heart and endless sterility. And not even a full heart, broken pieces, pieces left out, a half-heart at best. Alone long enough that loneliness turned in on itself, became hatred for anything that would dare to offer itself now, any love or closeness, rage at it for _not being there when it counted- _

Just another ghost that would not be away from him. He ordered it away, his voice lacked conviction. It lingered. Poisoning the air, the atmosphere between them, hanging over them all night.

"I still like you." he said, over-concentrating on straightening her books now. They were fairly straight as it was. He made them straighter.

He'd run through different countryside, either helping Orochimaru shift his operation or fetching for him, one or the other- always. No stability. Everything around him always changing. The dislocation felt like a mix of shock and anesthetic, because he didn't even feel like himself anymore. He remembered walking through some little mountain town, the accents subtly different. Exhausted- unable to sleep from the time change. Some busybody of a monk stopping him, trying to tell him some _bullshit_, some legend about monsters that had once been alive and had been alone too long, monks that went into the wilderness and never came back. Monsters that had once been human. It was bullshit, but nothing he did meant anything anymore. He was a _puppet _of Orochimaru- though somehow he talked himself out of it. But that was just because Orochimaru could pull his strings. Somehow he wanted it too. Complicit, he thought. Completely complicit. And if he didn't like the image of the puppet, then he was the kabuki actor. Going through endless pointless symbolic motion. An actor, playing out a role. Wearing a mask.

Maybe _nothing _had mattered for so long that he didn't know what it was like to care about anything again. He wondered if that was how they saw him now, that was what was going on in their vigilant, quiet, reflexive watch on him. That he wore a human mask. But underneath it was the twisted shape of a monster.

"I like you too." Hinata said softly.

He was looking at the gold foil stamped on a book's spine, not her. He was taking in the details of the foil script. A sea adventure. "...you saw what happened." he said. Far away from himself.

"You're coming back to the village and you're going to go with the ANBU." she whispered, and he could barely hear her.

"You saw what happened with Naruto." he said, again. There was no point in _not _talking about it, it was sucking the oxygen out of the room around him. She was so troubled that she wouldn't even _look _at him. He looked at her, instead. So close, a handful of steps away. But he had the feeling she'd hunch herself into a ball, cringe away from him if he went to her now.

Which was not a pleasant feeling.

She nodded numbly. She looked at her hands, pressed together in her lap. He had only glanced, not wanting to _stare _and upset her further, but now he looked up and turned slightly to take her measure fully. She was also pressing her bare feet together nervously, one set of toes over the others. It really was like she was cringing, actually. A cringe with an hint of ice to it, of her silent disapproval. It never was spoken aloud and it never showed it's face openly. But you felt it.

It was something he had to fix. He faced her directly. "It's fine." he said firmly. "I'm just not used to them anymore. I'll get used to them again."

She nodded. She seemed to agree. But it was only something she did because she'd been taught to- be agreeable. He could see that. But there was nothing he could say, either. There was only a handful of answers he could give, and he'd said all of them. All there was to do now was wait, and Kakashi would arrive in a few hours. The ANBU would be with him.

...like a flock of silent crows, he thought. The hunter-nins and their sashes full of butcher tools. They cut the traitors and runaways to bits, they let nature devour the pieces. Sasuke did not fear death, and he didn't fear torture, he'd been taught as a small child to accept both. Maybe all he felt now was resignation. The criminal who relaxed in the handcuffs, slept in the police holding cell, secure now in the knowledge that nothing further could be done. Yes- exactly.

So he only had to wait.

Hinata didn't want to talk, that was obvious. Sex was also clearly out of the question. So he just got undressed, fished a fresh pair of cotton boxers from Hinata's wooden dresser, and went off to brush his teeth. The flowers by the sink, stamped into the wallpaper, embossed into the towels, gleaming from the labels of garish sparkly shampoos and soaps all reminded him of how violently different she was. She was like him, some shared set of circumstance. Distant fathers. Difficult families. Uncles that murdered one another. She was _nothing like him. _She was still silent and downcast when he returned to her bedroom. She had already gotten into bed, but it seemed clear too that he was now welcome to share it with her. He leaned over to catch her cheek in the cup of his hand and kiss her- off-centre, unpracticed. But the second kiss connected, and her hands slid over his neck and pulled him down to her. It was probably all right, she accepted this. She'd taken worse from her family, she probably expected almost _nothing. _She probably got less than that, most of the time.

And he'd be better than that, someday. Maybe sooner than she expected. "It'll be all right." he said to her.

She seemed to accept that too, but she was so encased in silence that it was hard to tell. She wouldn't even meet his eyes, and he didn't see how lifting her chin to make her look at him would accomplish anything. She was already upset. And it was almost morning. She curled up beside him after he doused the lanterns, and soon her breathing evened out. The tiny metallic click of her water clock took up the bottom line of the silence and darkness. The one who stared up at the faint moonlight on the ceiling, wondering how the hell he was going to fix this and make it all right again, the one who couldn't sleep despite being too tired to actually _do anything, _was him.

--

He was so mean to them.

It was the first word that came to her mind. Maybe it was because of Hanabi. Hinata felt the painful tug of a smile, one that couldn't stay normal. Tt bent under the worry, and of all the memories of their voices, she'd been listening to them talk all night. Naruto with too much edge and too much tension, Sakura seemingly always minutes away from yelling, Sasuke and his new, dark mood and the words- _come on bastard wouldya just give it up _and _either you're coming back or you're not, don't do this _and _neither of you can do anything so leave me alone. _He said that, more than once. She heard the practice and repetition in it- neither of you can do anything, _nothing can change it. _

It was as if he hated them.

That was her first thought, though she pilled reasons and memories on top of it, trying to blunt the echoing empty sound of it. Maybe- he was just upset, or he was just not used to being around them anymore- he'd said that, he didn't usually lie to her. Though It was true that she didn't _know _if he lied to her or not, she didn't know any part of him other than what he'd shown her. And how he was around _her_, in the relative privacy of her locked house. But she still didn't feel she was being lied to. There was no sinking feeling of things that she _knew, _but just didn't want to hold in her hands yet, things that would prove that this relationship was as empty as all the others, a very flimsy ceremony of words and her own even flimsier imagination-

_- I think you're a good person. _And she did. Even if he was being this way. She looked at the still landscape of blankets and pillows on her futon. It was midmorning, and she was crawled out of bed, her head all fuzzy with sleep and the sense that she should _do something. _No sense of what that was, just an empty space. An unformed worry. Sasuke didn't wake, he had fallen into a very deep sleep, she felt it in his breathing and the way he didn't stir. She watched him, just the wild ragged edge of flat black over the lump of featherdown quilt, the crisp morning light reduced him to whites, darks, simple brushwork.

Absolute stillness. She'd watched him sleep before, even lay next to him, pressed against the hollow of his clavicle and chest, the crook of his arm. The warmth and the steady liquid thump of his heart didn't dispel the stillness. That worried look on his face. No tension around his eyes while he slept, though she was used to seeing it on his face by daylight. He slept with a look of mild weary resignation on his face. Simple clean lines. Of disconnection. Like he was watching things come apart. Or knew in some timeless way that they were- they would be- and nothing could stop it.

_Nothing can change it. _She'd had her own thin comforting words to bury that idea, when he first said it she'd rushed to sooth him, to say _no, it's all right, everything will be all right. _But now linked to the memory was the crackle of the paper in the fire. Sasuke had moved very swiftly and snatched the letter from the flames. But the envelope had sank down. And she'd watched the fire curl up around it, and rise and all of her little words came apart too. It wasn't all right. _You won't forget, _he'd said after, with the first traces of his harsh, peculiar sympathy, bare as a tree's branch against a winter sky. _It's okay, you can let go. You won't forget. Nothing can change it._

A good person. Helping her, and taking care of her. And being there for her, when Neji was not. And even when Neji had returned and could have been there, was still not there, Sasuke still was. Putting up with her family even though they treated him like garbage- for her sake, making his quiet promises, like they were being inscribed in ink or stone somewhere in his head, marked with the blood print, the signature of his whisper to her. _I'll take care of you. _And _will that be enough? _And even though he was so angry at Neji, he hadn't made trouble. And even if he was just as angry at Naruto and Sakura-

-he hadn't hurt them. Like he had before, because Hinata remembered those nights with her friends when the sake bottle emptied out, and when Naruto closed his eyes and remembered. Hinata saw the shadow moving under what he did say. But a killer would have struck by now. And a killer would have not been so angry all day and _not _acted. And she was a killer, she'd killed three people. Sakura was a killer, and Naruto was, and if Sasuke was too- and he almost certainly was- there was no space there, no difference between them. There was no room for denunciation on a ninja's moral compass, the points were squeezed too close together.

So- a good person. A difficult person. Angry- silent, glaring, with things she didn't understand and secrets that were not hers to know. But good, in the only way that could matter. Like her first intuition had said. And Sakura said she should trust that, and listen to it's silent voice. Sasuke said she should stand up for herself, that she should say things, that she had something to defend that should be hers, something to say that was worth listening to- because he showed her, and he listened. Sakura and Sasuke, who had not agreed on even the dinner menu, had actually found something to agree upon.

Unbeknownst to either of them.

She was tired and she knew there was nothing she could say, nothing that would make sense. He would ask her why his team was any of her business in the first place. Even if he was gentle about how he asked, she would have no good answer. It wasn't that she feared that her team could fly apart the same way, that her friendship with Kiba and Shino was as breakable. She knew that she could depend on both of them. So maybe it was just Naruto's team... that had gone wrong. Somehow.

Maybe it was just that she didn't like seeing Naruto and Sakura so unhappy. And she wanted to help. She wanted to have the ability to give them something back, finally, their lost teammate delivered to them safe and sound. And she was no hero and should not pretend to be one. Maybe it was just selfishness. Wanting everyone around her to be happy, so she could feel less afraid.

So none of it was worth saying. Sasuke gave her a series of indirect looks, questioning glances as if he wasn't sure why she was suddenly so quiet. But he eventually just went to bed. She slept, his heart murmuring under her ear. She woke hours later, the sun high over her by then. There was movement on the floors beneath her, the house fully awake and starting to hum with the day's activity. She'd gone to her desk.

The papers and pens there, the ink stamps, the colored fingers of wax and her metal signets to seal official Hyuga documents.

The sun was up and she had missed her early morning training. But that was not unusual now, she had been completely out of sorts since the ice storm. Since his sensei was coming to collect Sasuke, maybe it really was entirely out of her hands now, and there was nothing she should do at all.

Her ledger book was closed, filed neatly on top of her desk. She reached for it- there was always busywork to be done. But as she did so, she spotted the roll of papers and the inscription from her students- _Hyuga-sensei. _Their calligraphy was still a bit clumsy. And it was probably a collection of get well notes to her, her students were always very concerned about how she was doing. One of them, a class eighteen months ahead of her current cohort, had meticulously drawn her a picture of thirty students, every one accounted for, and a blue-haired teacher. Everyone was drawn smiling, with bright spots of candy red in their cheeks. The exact inscription- how when she was happy, everyone in the class was happy. Shikamaru had seen it on her desk and smiled thinly. _It's true, when a woman isn't happy, no one's happy. _She'd ignored him. She'd kept it. When she moved to a new classroom, she had it framed, sealed under glass so it wouldn't get faded and dusty. The new classes were fascinated by it. That was probably why they were so intent on pleasing her. They knew when she was faking it, her polite smile that she'd learned to plaster on her face didn't work for them, not the way it worked for other people. It didn't work for Naruto and Sakura either, they knew it was false too. She was getting better, she knew. But so slowly. She rarely smiled.

Maybe more pictures like that one would make her feel better now. She needed something to do, she couldn't just sit and do nothing. She reached for it, and she was working off the double-knotted twine when there was the polite, businesslike knock of one of her guards.

She was disheveled from bed and in her underwear under the cotton nightie she wore. It was too revealing, she fetched her dressing gown. She ran her hands hurriedly through her hair. Her reflection looked back clumsily from her vanity mirror, dry blotches from too much crying, dark smudges under her eyes. "Come in." she said, and tried to look somewhat decent and presentable, resting her hands nervously on the back of her desk chair.

The elder guard opened the door and bowed perfunctorily. His elaborately inked hands twitched, very slightly, as his alert white eyes glanced to Sasuke fast asleep on the futon, and then to Hinata in her nightclothes.

But his expression stayed cool and professional. "Pardon the interruption, Hinata-sama. You have a visitor."

She brightened a bit, she liked Naruto and Sakura's sensei. He was a strange man, but he seemed kind in his own eccentric way. There was his unfortunate taste in dirty novels, but Hinata had decided she could overlook this. She had watched him as he served as official witness as their wedding, and seen the way he quietly supported both of them. How he quelled the problem neatly later when Kiba had too much to drink and started picking a fight with Hanabi's sensei Choji. _Now, he's not fat at all, he's just big boned. He has a healthy appetite and an impressive stature. Yes, like the sumo masters. So both of you just apologize, and everyone pet the dog, and- _She'd seen the hint of sadness to him most of all. But maybe she was just very good at seeing that now, seeing how she felt herself reflected in the silent faces of others. Her softness and her empathy, it's few possible uses.

"Is it Hatake Kakashi-san?" she said hopefully. She would have to dress- very quickly, there would be no time to shower and wash her hair. But she could wash her face and maybe look a bit more normal. He would probably say nothing, he seemed to not care about other people's appearances. And maybe she could talk to him, and he could reassure her about the ANBU, and Sasuke could have a bit more time to sleep, and-

"No." the guard said, shaking his head firmly. "Not a visitor from outside the family. It's Neji-san. My brother is..." His sharp, handsome features took on a look of hard distaste. "...concerned that you and Neji-san are not getting along. He wanted you notified before we let him come in."

This was a bit unusual, but maybe it was clear how uncomfortable things were between herself and Neji. She wondered if she should have tried harder to act as if everything was fine in front of others, but it was too late now. She nodded. "I understand. Um.. thank you. Tell your brother that I'm fine. Please let Neji-niisan in. I'll be across the hall."

Maybe it was that Neji didn't usually come to visit her directly, too. They had never been close. And he had avoided her room, he seemed to think it would be intrusive for him to approach her there. She felt the same, she never went to his sleeping quarters. There were whole sections of the house, like safe zones and areas of refuge, where he could go and avoid her entirely. She would never cross over those invisible lines.

And he would not come into her bedroom, so she closed her door tightly to avoid disturbing Sasuke, and went to wait in a tatami room. There was sunlight there, birds in the bare branches and little green dashes, leaf buds on the trees outside. She had put a little clay pot of pussywillows in the circle of the window. Three branches, one of them forked, a few clipped willow twigs from the covered garden in with them. It was an unusual flower arrangement, but she had always been unusually good at creating useless beautiful things. She had pages and pages of pressed flowers, pots and collections of them. It was just the _useful _ninja skills that she had trouble with. And Neji was at the door before she heard him coming, he was always silent and on his guard.

She should have been used to it and not startled. "Good morning, Neji-niisan." she said, steadying her voice again. "I'm sorry, I'm not-" She wasn't dressed. She wasn't ready in any formal way for visitors. Neji silenced her with the briefest glance of impatience. "How.. how are you this morning?" she said, pushing ahead.

"Good morning Hinata-sama." he was very formal but somehow it never had any warmth of friendliness. The words were bare and serious. He sat down opposite her. He swiftly declined her further politeness, the offers of tea and breakfast. He wanted to know if Naruto and Sakura were still asleep, and where Sasuke was. She told him, and he nodded. "I trained very early today so no one would see me. But this," he pressed one finger to the metal plate of his forehead protector. "will be known by tonight. Your guard already knows. My chakra is different now, Hinata-sama."

_We're both in trouble. _The words were plain in the air, as if he really had said them.

And it was her fault. _I accept the consequences of my actions, _she'd said to Sasuke. And she would here too. She twisted the little tremor of anxiety out of her voice. "I... I understand. Is the seal-"

"It's gone." Neji said abruptly. For a moment she thought he would take off his bandana and bindings and show her, her stomach flopped with sudden worry, but he just stared back at her. "The jutsu is useless. There's nothing for it to connect with."

She didn't want to try the jutsu again, she felt sick just forming the seals. She nodded. "I'm..." She was glad it had worked, and that she'd copied the removal technique properly. She was always so nervous, she worried she'd make a mistake. She could get worried enough to stumble over the simplest things.

Neji waited, his lips thinned slightly, and when she was obviously not going to continue he said "Everyone is going to know soon. The council is absolutely going to know, and very soon. Your guard may report it as soon as he sees a senior member of the family... That's his duty, Hinata-sama." He said that sternly as she drew breath to object. "_Yes, _a personal guard may conceal information from the administrators and the council on the order of the clan leader. But you have not established that condition with your guards yet. They are _not _yet operatives for you as Hiashi-sama's guard was for him. You have been clan leader for less than seventy two hours."

All of this was true. Hinata nodded. The heavy dampness of tears settled over her throat, but her eyes stayed dry. Maybe she was getting a bit tougher. She needed to be so much stronger to handle this, she needed to be exactly like her father.

"And you have spent most of that time waiting hand and foot on Uchiha Sasuke." Neji concluded, his arms crossed now and his eyes closed in cool irritation. "That's fine. Actually- _no_, it's not fine at all, but it's not something we will discuss now. The situation is what it is. We have a bigger problem. Hinata-sama, the council is going to call for you and you are going to have to answer them."

The subject was being forcibly changed. And she should go along with it, Neji was right. This was not the time. "Don't say that." she whispered.

She always found herself looking at her hands, or her feet, the ends of her long hair floating under her bowed head, swaying as she trembled. She never saw how anyone reacted to these tiny little acts of pathetically small courage.

"Hinata-sama," Neji said, she heard his irritation and impatience with trying to drag the words out of her.

"Don't talk about him that way, he's no worse than I am. And I'm not perfect either." It was getting easier to force the words out. She knew Neji wouldn't hurt her. And if he was still speaking to her now, he must be willing to tolerate this from her. She knew this was right, too. It was always easier to stand up for others than herself.

"He has a reputation," Neji began coldly.

"I.." her lips were dry and she licked them nervously. "I do too. I'm weak. Everyone-"

"Hinata-sama," he was tired of this, she was wasting his time.

"-I know, Neji-niisan. But I... I can't blame him. And if you accept me, you should accept him too."

"So you keep telling me. So Uzumaki keeps telling me too. All of you so intent on this lost cause... it's like a communicable insanity."

She nodded. She accepted that from him. He was right, this wasn't the time to even try to argue through this. And- she had known what she was doing, she just feared going through with it. But it wasn't so wrong...

"I'm going to tell the council the truth." she said. She curled her fingers tightly around one another, her fingertips were going red with the pressure. "It was my father's will that the seal be removed."

Another moment where she didn't see Neji's reaction, but she could imagine it. "Because you saw a ghost."

"Because of my father's spirit. And because..." she knew that Neji didn't believe, but that didn't mean it _wasn't true, _or that she was just being stupid. Her own faith meant something to her, there had to be some reason she still felt so connected to this house. "...of the bloodline. And my part in it."

"And they might accept that superstitious nonsense, or they may not." Neji said with weary discontent. It was only the same thing he had said many times before, this same old argument.. "That they let Uzumaki come stampeding in so soon after the funeral makes me think they are under that same delusion, nonsense about stars and bloodline constellations-"

Hinata let him complain, it was something she had done many times before as well. There was nothing she could say to answer his anger and his objections. They were always rightfully held. He had been brutalized- by her family- by the bloodline that she stood at the end of, holding up it's accumulation of crimes. She let his words surge past her. She listened- but part of her was thinking. She had an idea. A little green sprout, tiny and curled up like the buds on the trees. She had the power to take off Neji's seal. She had the power to protect him now, too. She had the power to protect...

"-but I don't think you're being systematic about this, Hinata-sama. We don't know who supports you yet."

...Sasuke as well, maybe, if she dared. If she could actually _do it, _connect the little twinge of the idea into action, dare to go through with it. She worried distractedly that Neji could see what she was thinking, that he'd stop her, that he'd-

"This is my right." she said quietly from under her hair. It fell into her face and hid her, she felt safer that way. "I'm the heir of the Hyuga clan."

"You're the _leader _of the Hyuga clan." Neji corrected.

"I'm the leader," she repeated, uncertainly. Her father had said this many times, she had heard the iron in his tone, it came to mind immediately. She could hear how different her voice sounded from her father's. But she sat up. She could at least try to act less terrified, less like a shy little mouse who hid under her thick hair and couldn't meet anyone's eyes. "I'm the leader..." she said, but now her voice was distant. "...Neji-niisan..." She looked slowly up and over to him.

He looked at her like he had no idea what she would do next. She was completely out of control, she was acting like someone he couldn't understand anymore.

"I need your help." she said. The direct morning sunlight made a glossy red sheen in his hair, haloed the crown of his head like fiery laurels.

He frowned. "With what? With the council?"

She shook her head. "No.. before that. I need..."

She didn't dare say Sasuke's name, it would just make Neji angry. But there was no way to say this otherwise, she couldn't just mislead him and have him find out. He'd understand... as soon as he saw the documents. As soon as they were laid out and sent to the Hokage's office.

"..I need you to cosign." she whispered. "I need... Neji-niisan, _please." _

She needed his signature beside hers, she needed a standing member of the ANBU to be a legal precaution for the village, to shore up the dirty trick she was about to pull- _her, _a little Hyuga mouse. But it was easier when it wasn't just her own useless life to protect. It was easier when it was someone else.

"The village can't take.. they can't imprison a member of the house, they can't-" It had to be true, it was why Sasuke's father had written so many nasty letters, and her own father had written so many nastier ones back. It was because the village's agreements with the Hyuga clan were full of little trapdoors and clauses, little pressure points just like this one. She didn't want him _taken out of her house, _she didn't want him tortured, harmed, she wanted to be the one who had to be consulted before he could be executed, before he could be dragged from her house like a criminal-

-she could save him. She could protect him. The dangerous thrill of doing it was so close, she was almost shaking. But the strange glancing touch of strength was with her. That glowing awareness that it was _right, _and she was not powerless.

Neji was watching her, his frown dissolving into complete bafflement.

"Hinata-sama, what-" he said, as he saw her quickly get to her feet. "Hinata-sama!"

He followed her to the door. He didn't turn his back, or walk away, he didn't shut her out. He followed her down the hall. "_Hinata-sama! _Oh for... What are you going to do _now?"_

--

He must have slept. But he never noticed it until he woke again. He saw the time difference. He used to sleep so shallowly in Orochimaru's lair that his dreams would assemble from the brick and mortar around him, the flicker of the bare candle melted onto the wall.

Not here. It was safe enough, he slept fully. Hinata was there. Then she was gone. Her voice was in the hall, then the reedy shout of her cousin. Then nothing. Silence. Sunlight. He was dreaming.

It was all over now. So when the time came, all the struggle had gone out of him. He'd thought Naruto would wake him, jump on the futon and strip the covers off- _rise and shine, jackass! _But the hand that shook him from sleep was a gentle grip on his wrist, small warm fingers. The intricate, reactive, paradoxically gentle touch that her bloodline and it's techniques had built into her.

Passing rapidly out of dream state and reality falling back in on him, in pieces of the day, the time, the place- what was happening- _now_. He didn't open his eyes and for a moment just felt down her arm, her shoulder, and the cold smoothness of her thick hair and the warmth at the nape of her neck. "You have to get up, the ANBU are here and-"

Her words came in that piecemeal awareness, he heard _ANBU _and _now _and _here _and the drab comforting ordinariness of a dream that was not a nightmare instead resolved into the grey half-light of morning.

Indirect sunlight, spilling in on another side of the house now. Time change. Dreams.

He sat up and rubbed his eyes.

"-your sensei Kakashi-san is here. I've made some.. arrangements." Softer, a whisper for only him to hear "_Please don't be angry," _ And a misty collection of other words, the sound magic signal of her worries. He just curled his arm around her shoulders and cuddled her against him. Clumsily, his muscles still stiff, his wounded arm still tight and numbed. Hinata fit herself against him like she had before; and he'd pictured the same mental image of a heavy swan's wing, folding it's fluffed layers of feathers into sleek white limbs, her delicate body.

"It's all right," he said, his own voice blurred by sleep. "Whatever you've decided."

That she decided and took initiative was good enough. He trusted her, and as he held her and her pulse thumped hard against his cheek, she told him what this was all about. She didn't want to relinquish him to the village, she was invoking Hyuga legal clauses and she had lawyers, there were agreements the Hyuga made with the village. The village could press the issue but her strategy was sheltered from that by the trouble this would cause the Hokage's office, the sheer hassle. And the Fifth was already bending the rules for Naruto and had _always bent the rules for Naruto- _Sasuke grimaced and thought that one more bent rule was nothing, by now. Naruto broke anything that got in his way.

Or that wouldn't go along with him. But resistance had aged overnight, changed the face it showed to him like it had donned a new mask, turned into a sleepy resignation. Like his anger had been the puppet pieces of childishness, really. Trying to break Naruto's comic timing, keep from being his straight man once again, trying to squirm out of admitting that Naruto had been right.

And succeeded. Like he wanted to struggle just a bit more before letting Naruto win. But the struggle had gone out of him. "It's fine with me." he said. The ANBU would still have him, they could still do their work. They couldn't take him over the dividing lines of Hyuga property. The Hokage's office was allowing this. The Hyuga would provide space and total privacy. The Hokage would let Naruto accomplish his latest bull-charge through their china shop of rules.

But this was not Naruto, this was Hinata. "I want you to be safe and I don't want you to have to leave my house." She must have known that he would need time to even get used to coming back to it. If he were cast out now he might wander off in his own enforced solitude, unable to find his way back, unwilling to even try, he knew he could easily throw himself into that kind of pointless self-exile. But that _she _knew it was worrisome. And convenient, saving him the trouble and misery of trying to explain himself to her.

She had some guilty admissions to make about the documents that would classify him as Hyuga property now, the way she herself was, someone fully in their custody and not to be removed without their permission. He shrugged. The words didn't matter. The rage needed more heat and power than that to roar to life. Whatever protected him, whatever got him safely through this. It was a gift from her, a little glimmer of proof that her love and her affection might be real.

So no struggle in him, as he dressed, and as Naruto leaned in the doorway, mostly silent now. A few words came out of him, curls of Kyuubi flame or that nightmare recollection of towers and seas of bubbles. A few stupid insults, a quickly sketched map of their usual quarrel- over nothing, and all he heard was the worry under it. And the relief. And the blue of Naruto's eyes.

"Don't worry." he finally allowed.

"I'm not worried," Naruto said, finding his bright confidence. "I'm just happy."

_What are you happy about, idiot? _No- he didn't have the patience to set up Naruto's goddamn jokes for him.

"I'm happy you came back. That you're back with us." Naruto said anyway, as Sasuke knew he would. Naruto seemed to wait for space to talk again more than he listened, than he needed to hear anything back. " And Kakashi says they can fix what Orochimaru did. I always knew-"

That this day would come. That if Sasuke didn't _end it- _ by his own hand, by forcing Itachi's hand, by just throwing himself on the pyre of that self-hatred- then the demon and the world and the forces of nature themselves, perverse as they were, would join hands with Naruto's stupid goddamn ideas, his _stupid _insistence. if Sasuke didn't fight that to the very end then he'd slip, and he'd fall...

..and Naruto would catch him. And Naruto would win. Naruto would save him, just like he knew. Because he couldn't make that final killing blow. And if you weren't going to give in to Naruto than you just had to kill him. Or yourself. Nothing else would stop him.

It was as good as an admission. This _idiot _had also always known that.

"-that I'd definitely bring you back to Konoha, and Sakura-chan knew too, and everyone except _you."_

Sasuke harrumphed. But he didn't bother to argue.

But Naruto wasn't finished. He grinned, all lit up with his triumph now. He knew he'd won. He had something in his pocket, something heavy. His nails clicked against metal.

"The next time I see you," he said, his face split in that stupid, determined, comforting grin. "You'll put this back on."

He pulled out his hand, and in it was a Konoha forehead protector.

On it was a scratch. Untouched.

That Konoha leaf. The banner of those who had ordered the massacre. The war criminals, but also the insignia of this idiot, and that pushy girl, his best friends in the world, both of them. This was theirs too. Naruto and that damn forehead protector, that scratch, those memories. He'd make this decision later. The ANBU would siphon the snakes from him. And then he had some _business _to take care of with Konoha.

"Fine." he said flatly.

Naruto tilted his head, and his floppy blond spikes fell over the other side of his face. "Yeah?" he said. The triumph welled under his voice.

Sasuke was finished dressing. He'd folded his sleep clothes and put them away, put on a fresh jacket and undershirt, remade Hinata's bed. He walked to the door, closing that distance between Naruto and himself. Watching Naruto watch him back, liquid points of blue, laser light, like that point of prism-cut sun that had pierced down at the Valley, pressed itself to Naruto like an signal from the heavens. This idiot always _did_ have so much encouragement. The damn elements themselves lined up behind him.

But never mind. Sasuke had things to do.

"I said it was fine." he repeated, gruffly. "I can't wear it until I'm cleared by the ANBU. I told you. I'm going now. Don't bother Hinata while I'm gone. Out of the way."

"Haha." Naruto said happily. He moved aside with an elaborate sweep of his arm.


	20. Shadowplay

Hinata was right, Neji _was _angry.

"I don't know why I'm doing this." Neji muttered, his finger freshly sliced and bleeding.

"...why I'm even putting up with this... this waste of your time and attention.." The lawyers sipped coffee and watched with alert eyes. The entire house was tense and quieted because of the ANBU creeping through the walls. The guards and retainers were all watching silently throughout the house. But even the civilians who never touched a weapon felt it. Hinata bit the inside of her lip, slowly and methodically, watching Neji complain. The sun glittered in the wet on Neji's fingertip as he lowered it to the scroll.

"... this _missing-nin, _and Hinata-sama, if you think the council was going to be furious _before-"_

But his fingerprint was pressed bloodily into the paper. Hinata watched it, watched it shine wetly, watched it absorb, watched it dry. Done. He'd supported her, his complaints and his worries and his words now were beside that fact.

"I have to do this, Neji-niisan." she repeated. Her voice was still high and thin. Behind it an echo of someone else's voice, the iron imprint of her father's words. Her memory of him was still clear. He'd only been _not alive, _not of flesh and blood like her, for a week now. That was not very much space in time... between now as she stood and ignored Neji, selectively listened, and where she'd stood to greet her father at the gate. Iron locks separated these times, like the lock on the coffin, and the way the fire was supposed to make a bright line of division and create a new era for the clan. It was done, finished. But it was still close. She had to do this.

"...you keep telling me that." he groused.

The sunlight sliced between them as they walked downstairs, into the exposed east face of the main foyer, where the walls were unsealed and opened to let the sun flood through the glass. All around them was the sound of normal everyday activity, of servants chatting and bustling around, of members of her family talking over tea in tatami rooms, heading purposefully to the front of the house, dressed for business or missions. On the wide east veranda through the glass, some of the elders and their younger attendants sat on cushions and mats, the ceramic bowls of their pipes hot white in the direct sun. The sky and slice of garden behind them was piercing blue, the blackness of the wet raked gravel beneath it cut with bright shoots of green.

The gardeners were hard at work, dotted out in the gardens patchworked and inlaid around the house. It was complete comforting normality. It might have been any normal day in her house, her father might have been up in his study or locked away in a meeting with his advisors. Neji might have been off and out of her reach, as he had always been. Nothing might have changed at all. Just that Neji was beside her. Sasuke's sensei Hatake Kakashi was waiting for them somewhere in the wings of the house. Somewhere too there were ANBU, their scattered shadows, maybe they had already come in through the reserve side gates, slipped over the walls. And somewhere over her head, Sasuke was sleeping. Peacefully, like he accepted his fate.

A servant took them to where Hatake Kakashi was waiting. He was sitting calmly in a small meeting room, away from the sun and dominated by two hanging paper lantern globes. They were suspended off the ground like two hanging moons. Or two eyes, just dead white paper now that it was the middle of the day and they were unlit. The house seemed haunted selectively in both rooms and time. There were no ghosts in this part of the house, this time day, now.

Sasuke told her about how ghosts could come back in pieces, the skeleton of their bodies caught in one place, their eyes staring lidless from another. And never during the day. She bowed to Hatake Kakashi, who was unruffled as always. He put down his book. Neji made some small gesture of politeness. And then Neji and Kakashi talked over the scroll with it's legal documents, talked about ANBU things that Hinata was not fully aware of, talked over her. She listened quietly, her hands and legs folded neatly.

Because Neji was there, she couldn't ask Hatake Kakashi too many questions. And the question she wanted to ask was probably something Hatake Kakashi could not have answered, anyway. Neji had always said that ANBU could not explain too much of what they did in their closed, locked prisons. And more than that, suddenly it felt as if she would shame herself and Sasuke for even asking. Sasuke might be upset with her if she asked- if she begged for mercy on his behalf. He might resent her interference, no matter how much patience he could work up for her. She bowed her head. She listened to what was important. Hatake Kakashi's single eye narrowed, then hooded in quiet resignation, if you could even call it that. He never seemed too concerned or upset about anything, it was as if he was suspended in a distant haze of sadness, and nothing else could get close to him.

"...fine, fine." he said, and handed the scroll back to Neji. His tone was so light that it couldn't hold any feeling.

And the important thing, Hinata told herself, was that he had agreed. Sasuke would stay in the house. The ANBU would do their business here, if not under her watch than at least within her reach. It would be nice if she understood more. And it would be nice if she could talk to either of these people, both of whom had transformed themselves behind a thicket of procedural language, turned into ANBU officers and because of that, people she couldn't question or talk to in any way.

But Neji had changed back once she had woken Sasuke, and than Naruto and Sakura. He was waiting for her in the hall, she caught the tail-end of a glance he was shooting at someone behind her. It must have been her guards, both of whom were the silent weighted presence they always were at the end of her hall, behind the half-opened oak divider. But as soon as Neji saw her, she was taken along with him, he wanted to see her. He was back to his old self, tense and impatient.

Back in her cheerful little tatami room, back in the bright wash of sunlight, she rearranged the sprigs of pussywillows as he moved restlessly behind her. The six steps that he could take to cross the room. Then a pause. Another six paces. She wondered when he was going to tell her that she was completely out of control, completely out of her mind- _completely _out of line. She wondered when he was just going to look at her and tell her that she was being stupid, that she was a _stupid foolish girl, _the exact words her great aunt would have used. Her fingers were abruptly too tight and the twig broke in her hands. A pussywillow struck the windowsill and sat there, it's fuzz gleaming a bit in the sunlight.

It made no sound so Neji must have just heard her little gasp, and then the clumsy way she dropped the broken twig.

His pacing came to a halt behind her.

"What's the problem now?" His tone was wary.

"Nothing." she said softly. She leaned down to retrieve the twig from the floor. It had three pussywillows arrayed near it's crown, like soft tines of a tiny pitchfork. It was broken now and the arrangement was ruined. She put the two broken pieces on the windowsill, assessed the remaining bits. It was only a collection of twigs now, a flowerless flower arrangement.

"You should go say goodbye to him." Neji had turned back into an aloof member of the secret police. Nothing more.

"No." she whispered, staring at the fallen pussywillow, immobile on the windowsill. "He's going to be safe. I'm going to protect him. I don't have to.." she swallowed, and made her voice normal and clear. "I don't have to say goodbye. Uchiha Sasuke is not leaving."

The formality seemed to defuse the sound of his name. It was as if by echoing Neji's words, speaking of Sasuke as if he were mostly a stranger, she could make it up to Neji. She could calm him a little bit. Maybe Sasuke would be a bit more welcome then, and Neji would not be so angry.

But- back again to the impatient Neji she knew. As little as she did know. "...what are you doing over there?" His footfalls moved over the tatami to her side for a better vantage point. "I don't know why they even both teaching kunoichi that," Of course Neji agreed that the flowers, the time and effort invested in making them harmonize and create small pockets of serenity was a waste. "Though you'd do it anyway. You and those flowers..." The waste and pointlessness that was everything she liked or wanted. "...but never mind. The point, Hinata-sama, is that you _should _go say goodbye. I know you think I'm too hard on you, but right now I'm trying to help you. Go say your farewells now. You'll regret it later if you don't." Back, again, to the procedural voice of the ANBU officer.

Though Neji would say, probably, that she had already created this problem for herself. Being with Sasuke, knowing him and wanting to protect him, Neji would say that this was just as futile as locking yourself in battle with destiny, making your entire life about it. And just as wasteful, besides.

The twig she held had broken in her hand again. It's insides were sponged green and white, they tore raggedly, more like rubber than dry wood. "Neji-niisan, he has to be safe. I won't let.." she heard the weakness in her voice but continued anyway. "... anyone hurt him." Again, trying to steady herself. "I won't let anyone hurt him."

"I'm the leader of the Hyuga clan." she said, when she heard Neji's sigh of exasperation behind her. He had retreated to the his pacing again. The steady staggered half-rhythm of his feet over the mats. "_I'm the leader of the Hyuga clan." _she whispered it to herself, trying to make the words feel right and sound like they belonged to her. Her father had a way of saying it, a hard edge of authority in his voice. _I am the leader of the Hyuga clan. _She practiced in her head, trying to make her voice sound like his.

"So you are." Neji replied sourly. "And I see you're misunderstanding me and Hatake. This legal loophole... _idea.. _that you had-"

No. _No. _She was not mistaken. "The clan has the right to reject any attempt to take a member into ANBU or village custody-" she began hurriedly.

"-yes. I don't mean that."

She fell silent.

"I mean that you can't protect him." Neji said emphatically. "You can't protect him from _himself. _And if the village orders his execution, you can't stop it. If you have... if you are even _thinking _of using the clan's influence to try to halt an execution order, or to harbor a condemned criminal, then get that thought _out _of your head right now! I'll go along with this.. this _waste of effort _to keep him here_. _That missing-nin should be in an ANBU prison- but I will allow this. I will _not allow that._ I'll protect you from yourself if necessary."

He had a ringing voice sometimes. His normal speaking tone was almost soft, rasped edges, it was an illusion of softness like finely grained sandpaper. But when he was warming to his subject this way, his voice went up and turned hard and glassy. Ringing in her head- _I will not allow that! _

"And would you _stop_.. whatever it is you're doing.. stop snapping that thing in your hand- _stop it. _You're acting like a..." His heated, exasperated sigh. "I don't even know where to _begin _with how you're acting. If you have something to say then _talk _to me and stop tearing apart things like that. What's gotten into you?"

There was nothing to say. She'd said everything and he had not believed any of it.

"I'll protect you from _yourself. _And the way you're acting..." he was closer, he'd moved to face her and his feet had come to an abrupt stop squarely behind her tense shoulders. "...and I can see that it's going to be far more necessary than I'd thought."

She put her hands down on the windowsill. Her hair unraveled over her shoulder and fell down in front of her. The sun banded it with a deep blue, the color bands of shifting deep waters in the ocean. The mark of her mother's foreign village and her blood that was the source of everything that was wrong with Hinata. Everything that was soft and different and broken. Everything that maybe might be worth something- but not here. Not never. Not ever in her reach.

"_Hinata-sama. _Turn around, _stop that. _If you're going to drag us both on wild schemes then you _have to talk to me." _The scuff of his feet on the mats. His hands seized her shoulders and turned her around to face him. The sun cut past her, ignited the hot white of his eyes, the warm red tinge of his hair. She could bow her head and refuse to look at him, but she knew he'd just lose his temper entirely then.

So she faced him and she tried to hold his gaze, but she felt small and as if she were shriveling at the edges. She wasn't wrong, she was sure of that. It was _right. _But she just couldn't seem to stand her ground with any kind of force and confidence. Sakura would have. And Naruto would, he did this naturally, he didn't seem to even know how to _not _do it, to do anything else but defend himself and others, and what he knew was right. But she wasn't like them. And Neji was glaring at her expectantly. So she said, as best she could "I'm sorry."

A blanket apology for everything since she was wrong even when she was right.

Neji shook his head. "No." he said. His impatience had frozen into a tight worried frown. "_No. _Don't do that. Don't give me that.. that avoidance and that passive thing you do. Don't apologize. You're the leader of the Hyuga clan- _stop it."_

Neji really did say it with more conviction than she did. His voice had gathered a ragged edge of bitterness now. She found that she could look at him and not be ashamed. She could meet the full brunt of his gaze and the burning whiteness of his eyes, their sharp icy clarity and their cutting edges.

And he _was _right. She couldn't be a jellyfish _and _a reformer. As soon as she started to act as the leader of the Hyuga clan, she couldn't then retreat and scuttle under her bed to hide. She had to stand up straight and meet the consequences.

"I'm going to protect him." she said. "Because-"

Neji sighed, and he didn't roll his eyes, but the sharp, irritated shake of his head, the way he just dropped his hold on her and turned back to his pacing- he didn't have to say anything.

She kept talking, trying to pour the words out. "-because it's right and because he's our blood and because it's _my fault _and my father's fault and-" She was so close to desperation, she could slip into it any moment herself. She was just as emotional and panicked as any villager that Neji may have to assume his cool professional manner for.

"Oh, _spare _me." he snapped.

Like a snapped twig. The words fell apart even as she said them.

"But..." she tried.

"_No. _Spare me. I'm tired of hearing all of that." He had turned mostly away now. He wasn't pacing, he stood at a strange angle to her, mostly presenting his back and the barbed angle of his shoulder. The clenched fist down at his side, below it.

She tried again. "But it's true-"

"Is it? Is it really?"

Now he turned to face her.

"I'm tired of this. I'm tired of having him here and just _not _saying anything. I'm sparing your feelings, but maybe I should protect you instead- _yes, _from yourself!" When he turned and she saw his eyes, she realized how angry he was. His anger was so stop and start, so explosive and at the same time so much like a timed charge, a controlled demolition. He could seem to put the genie back in the bottle, reverse the fury of his words and their damage, turn it on and off like a lightswitch. "I was thinking this morning as I watched that _missing-nin _bring ANBU to our house, invade _our _place while _we _have so many concerns of our own! He uses Uzumaki, and Uzumaki and Haruno _both _just keep letting him control their life- _no, _I won't let you do that."

She couldn't look at him anymore.

"I was thinking that I'm not sparing you pain, I'm letting you harm yourself!" He held up his hand, silencing her. "_No. _You've already told me- I don't want to hear it all again. And don't even try to explain, _I know _what's going on."

Her own hands were fists balled up at her side, her own shoulders were taut and sharp and locked into an iron cross now too. She was actually standing against him, the words were just the next, easy step. "That isn't true, Neji-niisan-"

"So you keep telling me! But do you really want to talk about this, Hinata? Do you want to try to convince me? Fine- tell me. What has he done to make you think that-"

But she couldn't hold his gaze. Her cheeks burned, she looked guilty, she couldn't just... talk about this.. with him.

"-_exactly. _Nothing. He's done absolutely nothing. He's told you a few sugar-coated lies. He's conned you into sleeping with him- _yes I know about it! The entire house knows! _ He's got you thinking that you're his only hope, that you'll be the one to save him, he's already lead Uzumaki around by the nose this way for _six years!_ He'll lie to you until you're not useful to him anymore and then-"

The wood and paper absorbed most of the sound. But something in her vibrated, rang... like a tuning fork struck and set into motion.

Somewhere beyond her feet and her concentrated stare at them, Neji exhaled, tried to get his temper back under control. This sort of outburst was rare for him, but the threat and the trigger of it was always visible. She always felt it's tripwires, and she always stepped so lightly. She always followed the battle lines he drew, and she left him alone, and she never questioned him-

-and when she had the first time, he'd thrown himself at her, put his hand through her chest, driven his fury straight through her heart.

And she had survived, one skipped heartbeat, one momentary heart attack, one chance of certain death that she had nonetheless gotten up from.

And some part of her did not fear it, now.

"I think.." she said softly. "..that I will still protect him." She worked her fingers apart. Slowly they came out of their clawed fists.

The imprint of silence came before his answer. She used it to move to the windowsill again, look outside and at the sun on the ceramic tiles, the little birds hopping around in the bare trees, the little blades of new green leaves peaking out from their bare arms.

"Then as an ANBU operative, I have to assess the attitude, motives and capabilities of the prisoner." Neji said blandly, as if he were reciting from his procedural manuals now. The edge was hidden like a knife up his sleeve, held close to his vest. "I have to make a complete report, and I have to help Hatake in monitoring the situation of an ANBU interrogation and target recovery operation, I have to-"

He had to, he had to, he had to. He _wanted _to go fight with Sasuke.

She didn't see his face. Maybe he had buried his true feelings, and she would not have seen anything. Nothing she didn't already know.

Maybe there were things she had to stay out of. But not because she was too helpless to intervene. But because she had, and now she had to accept what would happen. What little protection she had won for him, maybe bargaining away what little respect Neji had for her. What little she could do. It was done.

"Please don't hurt him." she whispered. But Neji was closing the door behind him, and probably hadn't heard.

--

Sasuke wasn't afraid of this Neji asshole.

Sasuke would have _actually _preferred to sleep in and not have to deal with Naruto and Neji; or in fact _anyone _but Hinata, and another few hours of sleep, and _no talking _until he'd had at least two cups of coffee and a hot shower. But since Naruto had already ruined his morning... all that dangerous emotion stuff... fine, he'd deal with the Neji asshole too. Neji was merely an annoyance with a yapping voice, something that lacked a snooze button, that's all. Sasuke wasn't awake enough to work up any decent rage.

Though this _Neji asshole _seemed to require some educating on this point. Sasuke wasn't really awake enough to pound Neji's face in either. So he'd probably have to talk. Pain in the ass. At least Neji was good for something, he made Naruto disappear.

Good trick, that.

Neji was talking to Naruto, but Naruto was out of sight down the hall. Sasuke could only hear the whiny muffle of Naruto's voice. No words. Just the familiar high-pitched boring drill _sound _of it. And it kept Neji busy for a moment.

"Go, Uzumaki. _Now. _No, don't argue- _what? _No! No, my relationship with Tenten is... Look, go say that to her. No, I'm inviting you. Of _course _she'll 'kick your ass', you're being a- Naruto, just go downstairs and get out of the way. Yes. ANBU business. ...what? No. _No. _No, go bother Hatake Kakashi to see his badge. _No, _ANBU officers don't have badges, it's not like on television... _Naruto, leave. _Now. _Now_. Yes, I have no discernable sense of humor. Go laugh downstairs. Naruto... Fine. _Fine. _Go."

Not that Neji pulled it off with much poise or style, but Sasuke waited, arms crossed. Finally Neji got Naruto to go downstairs and wait with, presumably, Sakura and her stated intent to go talk to Kakashi. Sakura was in fact probably conferring with Kakashi about how to best handle Sasuke, sharing her concerns, helping Kakashi be an even bigger pain in the ass than _she _was. But- no matter. Hyuga Neji was here to entertain Sasuke in the meantime.

As a blank target, an animated taijutsu log, a place to slam his fist and spit venom and work off his fury.

Though Sasuke was rather short on time. And patience.

Neji stood between him and the hallway, the bend in it that made the blind corner, and the closed door that lead out of Hinata's private wing. Kakashi, Sakura and Naruto were somewhere beyond it. ANBU, silent and gathering, further out still. But present.

"Out of my way." Sasuke said boredly.

An invisible hanging weight, all around him. They were there. Kakashi was not the only one. And there- yes, the guards behind Neji had seemed a bit ruffled. Sasuke had seen their exchange of glances- _right_. Of course ANBU were already on the property, the house's grapevine had picked up their quiver and jumped.

Neji actually stepped forward. He didn't conceal his intentions in any way, he all but planted his feet. That same look in his eyes. That _taking something of mine _look, and though Sasuke basically had no patience for Neji at the best of times, he paused. _This _was interesting. Useful information, he was going to have to fight this son of a bitch somewhere down the line, anyway.

"You're in my way." he said, much as he had before. As if he were not particularly concerned, and he could feel the muscles of his face taking on the Zen mask, the vague look of disconnection, the only thing that had worked on Orochimaru.

And Neji, as scary and formidable as he clearly thought himself, was still a cosseted little rich boy from a good family, someone with prissy little morals and hypocrisies and- anyway- not even in the same ethical galaxy as Orochimaru. Neji couldn't even _imagine _someone like Orochimaru, the sheer scale of that depravity.

Neji in fact crossed his arms, totally ignorant of all of this. "I warned you once. I'll warn you one last time."

Of _what? _Sasuke was trying to stay expressionless, but this was really a waste of his time. Neji could at least get to the damn point. And- never mind, Sasuke would shove the point at him instead, since Neji refused to get to it. "You believe that I'm completely ignorant of the Hyuga clan and can't understand the threat they pose to me," he rattled off. Because, _of course, _Sasuke had _never _been in a noble ninja clan himself, and naturally also because the damn stuck up _Hyuga clan _was the standard of all evil for the known universe. "Fine. Get out of my way."

Neji actually slammed the palm of his hand to the wall, barring the hallway with his arm.

Sasuke allowed himself a sigh. "I don't have time for this." he said.

Neji raised one eyebrow, and somehow managed to make himself look even _more _snobbish. "I suppose running away from your problems takes up a lot of one's time..."

That wasn't worth responding to either. Maybe, Sasuke thought, he should just grab Neji's thumb, do it quick before he could react or whip out the Fist, wrench it backwards, twist, dislocate-

"... though you've invested plenty of time in suckering Uzumaki and Haruno. You've managed to sucker Hinata too." Neji shrugged with his free hand and shoulder. But his eyes stayed diamond hard.

And that was a different thing, _that _accusation. Neji was very pale, the flesh around his eyes and nostrils and lips would swell and turn spectacular shades of inky purple once Sasuke smashed his fist through Neji's skull a few times. His eyelids would swell almost to the point of shutting fully, and actually, Sasuke was still partial to that whole 'beat Neji in the face until his eye sockets collapsed' idea, that would be fun. "You don't know what you're talking about." he said, repeating himself- and getting tired of it.

"I think I know exactly what's going on. You aren't subtle, Uchiha."

Hinata didn't want him fighting with Neji. Hinata didn't want him fighting with Neji. Hinata didn't want him fighting with _goddamn asshole Neji-_

But he got his temper back under control. Because- this asshole wasn't worth it. And because he had better things to do. And because there would be time after to beat Neji to a pulp at his leisure.

But maybe he had a minute... He crossed his own arms. He looked down his nose at Neji, Neji and his stupid pretense of bulldog protectiveness, Neji who was being motivated by something _else, _it was whispered under the tone of his voice.

"I don't like the way you talk to her." Sasuke told him, with vague boredom. "I don't like the way you talk _about _her, either."

That did it, Neji's face froze into silent fury.

"You can't push her around any longer. She's afraid of you- but _I'm _not. You and the rest of your ridiculous family-"

Neji laughed, cold, sharp and humorless. "You really have _no _idea!"

Sasuke waved him off. "I'm going to the ANBU. Out of the way."

"I _am _the ANBU, you arrogant little punk." The snarl in Neji's voice was familiar, but why did he gesture to his side, why that recurring twinge of body language? It looked unconscious. "Real _tough guy_... You'll be tough until Morino has some quality time with you."

Because _of course, _spoiled little Leaf-nin Neji had be subjected to Orochimaru for six years, and because he _of course _had suffered more than anyone else, and _of course _he knew everything, and-

-never mind, Sasuke was tired of listening to the garbage come out of Neji's mouth. Neji didn't deserve to know this, but- "You're embarrassing yourself again. Asshole, Orochimaru _designed _most of those torture techniques. The rest are taught at the _academy. _You and your ANBU and this soft little village-"

That gesture again. That flicker of Neji's hand to his side. Something about that...

"-can't do anything that hasn't been done to me before. He did it all. There's nothing left. Now- _out of my way." _Sasuke looked pointedly at the arm Neji had braced to block his passing. This was proving a lot more annoying than he'd bargained. He needed to remember what he wanted, his end goals, not get too caught up in his old way of thinking...

...about how no one in this _pathetic village _could oppose him. The logic of the Sound Four. The hatred of softness and compassion and the idea that brutality was strength. _That _sort of thing. Fucking _Neji _was being such a blithering, oblivious temptation in that direction, reminding Sasuke too much of how much he'd invested in fucking _hating _this place, hating it for just existing...

...for not being there for him. Same old story. Making him think about fighting his way out, running back- fine, to _nowhere, _to Orochimaru. _Not an option. _But the adrenaline was prickling in his veins. He could fight- cram a tsukuyomi down Neji's throat to keep him busy, and then the guards...

Fight them to a standstill. Fight the guards, the retainers.. Sasuke was feeling better now. Sakura was, granted, not _entirely _useless, she was an adept healer. Her chakra was stronger than the old woman's herbal crap. So if he wanted, he could fight.

Maybe fight his way out of here. Being out-muscled by the retainers, out-numbered, it only meant that his tactics would have to change. He could run and he could use genjutsu, he could fight them by _avoiding _fighting them, he'd seen Itachi do that plenty of times. And if they were any good at all, they'd kept an eye on him and attempted to size him up, figure out his habits and manner. He'd been lazing around, doing nothing- well, other than that incident where he threw himself at the taijutsu logs in the training yard like a crazed animal- other than that, he'd been as docile as a pathetic little brat. Just like the pathetic little brat they thought he was anyway. He'd even just taken it when they'd used their gentle fists on him. He didn't resist them. They'd never seen him really _fight._

They wouldn't know what to expect.

Other than, maybe, some hyperbolic gossip about how he'd been the student of a sannin, learned all kinds of forbidden jutsu...

So it was an option.

Aside from the fact that it was counterproductive. Aside from the fact that it was _fucking stupid, _besides. Sasuke rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand, sympathetic ache of the sharingan behind his pupils. Fuck it. Enough of this Neji bastard.

_"Out," _he said with finality, glaring warningly at Neji's smug, certain, stupid face. "_of my way. _Now." Neji frowned a deeper crease between his eyes and opened his mouth to retort.

"Neji-niisan."

Behind him, just as Neji drew breath. Neji's eyes immediately darted over Sasuke's shoulder.

Just a breath at first, a whisper. But then she spoke louder.

"_Neji-niisan. _Please."

Her softness was like the Fist, velvet and seemingly so harmless. So devastating. Sasuke saw something bend and crumple in Neji's face. Some stray part of his feelings that he just couldn't keep inside- and Sasuke saw it clearly. Not just the sound magic, the way Neji said her name and the ridiculous honorific- _Hinata-sama. _Not just the way the others said it, like she was a princess or a shinto goddess, some animate spirit. Some ghost of the past, no-

-or maybe yes. Maybe that was it. Some shared history between them. Sasuke considered, watching this ridiculous posturing Hyuga Neji asshole look right past him- through him in fact- as if he wasn't even there, as if Hinata's presence was so all-consuming that she blotted out everything else in his field of vision. The old woman _had _said that. That there was a history there.

Something that Hyuga Neji feared, some chink in his brittle little armor, his brittle anger and his protestations of superiority. _Hey you. How old are you? _The way he'd been from the moment Sasuke had first met him, some supercilious upperclassman in the nervous scatted crowds at the chuunin exam intake meeting.

Sasuke turned partially, looked over his shoulder. Hinata was there, the sun was behind her and it lit a blue flame around her head, little staticky bits of her hair were alight, little white traces burning. She still looked tired and sad, the bruised circles under her eyes, the way she wore her fear and her uncertainty with such natural pride. She was... exactly as he'd seen her, the moment when she came into the room on that first morning. The fear in her face, but also the firm unquestionable tone in her voice. A queen, just as he'd thought. A white swan- no a cygnet still grey around the edges. A cygnet just unfolding her wings.

And looking at her was a lot better use of his last few moments than smirking at Neji.

The Neji asshole made Naruto disappear. And then Hinata made _Neji _disappear. Sasuke liked that. He was smiling despite being in the wake between foul moods, his anger was in brisk transit as the ANBU gathered, as the reckoning moved into place. As Neji muttered some embarrassed fragment at her, clearly unwilling to have any sort of conversation in front of a witness, Sasuke turned his back on Neji. Ignored the way Neji shut the door to Hinata's wing behind him just a bit too hard. Sasuke held out his arms to her instead.

Never mind her annoying family and her waste of a cousin- there were actually better things to do than beat the crap out of idiots who deserved it, who wouldn't _mind their own business-_

_-_never mind that right now. It didn't change _this. _What mattered. Her.

And this feeling. Something other than hate. Something that he could actually hold on to, build upon, do something with other than just be another force of chaos and brutality and terror in the world, another out of control psychotic like Orochimaru. No, like Madara. And- _no. _He was not like this.

Not anymore.

"Come here," he said, pleased.

She did come to him. She stepped into the layered shadows of the hall, and he saw her come apart at the seams as she did. The authority in her voice collapsed and she was almost in tears by the time he had her- by the time she was close enough for him to grab and hold tightly. She was shaking, and it was probably this _Neji asshole _who had done it-

"No," she whispered against his shoulder. "No, it's not that..."

Which was a _big lie_. He told her so as gently as he could. He stroked her hair and held her, and she stopped shaking. Her hands, locked around his waist, unclenched and she relaxed-

-a bit. He looked down at the crown of her head and the bit of her cheek that he could see, she was clinging to him like she was...

..well, she probably _was _terrified. It was normal to feel that way, probably. She was new to this kind of power, and she didn't seem to be the type who relished it, either. He told her it was all right, which seemed to be the only thing he could ever find to say. It was the only thing that felt right to say- _it's all right- _to try to comfort her. He was never sure what to say, _he _was still new at _this. _But it seemed to do what it should.

"..is it really okay?" she asked, and her voice was just a greyed shadow of even it's usual weightless softness. She meant the legal strings pulled, and- yes, it was fine. He could have lifted her chin gently to kiss her, but a kiss to her forehead and another to her temple instead, she lifted her eyes to him and he slipped his hand over her cheek, kissed her properly. _Yes. _It was fine. And.. yes, he was grateful for it. She whispered about how she worried that he'd be insulted, but-

"No, it's fine." he whispered. Kisses to her ear and the soft flesh of her neck under it, and he could feel her pulse and her warmth and her _aliveness. _It was amazing that he'd gone so long without this, this very basic closeness of another living person. Ghosts weren't very satisfying company. He eyed the guards over her shoulder, opening one eye to do it. The door was shut, right- Neji had slammed it shut in his impotent fury. Good. There was enough privacy here, but-

-she wanted him to come into her bedroom, he had a sudden image of her pulling him down to her bed, pulling open his Hyuga shirt and his own hands pulling down her zipper, her hair spilling over the pillow-

-but, no time. _Dammit. _Well- later. "Of course I'm coming back." he said to her when she had pulled them both through her open doorway. The sun was flooding the room now, it was well past noon. And her tiredness, the stress etched into her face like faded bruises... none of that changed how singularly beautiful she was, how the sun reflecting off the polished wood and bleached paper changed the whiteness of her skin, the way it was so soft against the color of her hair, the crystal clarity of her eyes... Well. It was all really sappy, all of this. It was the sort of thing he'd have found nauseating if he'd heard it from anyone else. But maybe it really was this way when you were in love. Being a sap was all right with you. And- maybe he was.

"Of course I'm coming back.." he whispered, his lips brushing her ear.

"...you're not really going anywhere.." she murmured, her arms tightly around him now.

"That's right. Don't worry." If he could make her feel better just by kissing her, holding her tightly this way, he'd do it gladly. If he could have found better, prettier words, and somehow not felt like a colossal dumbass saying them...

"Hinata, _don't worry. _I think it's real. And it's fine, I'm not leaving." But this was no more than he was saying to Naruto and Sakura, she deserved more than that. He swallowed hard, pushed ahead. "...I don't understand this love business and I don't have much experience with it. But I might love you, all right? Don't worry. It's going to be _all right."_

That seemed to help a lot. She didn't relax all the way, but she let him cuddle her. He didn't seem to be fucking this up too badly, which was reassuring. He wasn't feeling great about his ability to relate to people lately.. some _idiot _was... _well, _maybe it wasn't really Naruto's fault either. For _once. _

Hinata found a way to press herself closer to him, it made him feel like less of a guilty murdering piece of scum, less like someone who didn't deserve any of this. "... um.. I think I might too. That's why... I'd protect you as the clan leader even if I didn't.. feel that way.. but I think I do..." she was still whispering, leaning up and pulling him down to whisper in his ear like she was nervous about being overheard, or maybe just because she was as uncertain as he was.

"Then don't worry. We'll figure it out later." One last kiss, proper, their arms locked around one another. Perfect security. All the bullshit love songs actually sort of had a point, he had to admit. Moments like this really _were _everything, they stayed with you and burned in your memory. Maybe he'd walk through that interrogation with this moment and it's heat still clinging to him, warming him through all that, the loneliness and stress to follow...

A gentle kiss, not like the others that were hurried and intense. The taste of her made him regret the time lost overnight, when she was upset with him and he was too lost in his own anger...

..and about that, he thought he shouldn't part with her on a bad note like that. "Don't worry about them. The team will be fine... and Naruto's being a moron about it, but he's right... all right? _Don't worry..." _He whispered that to her, over and over, it seemed. It was like trying to kiss the tension out of her, trying to just love her enough to solve all her problems, save her, make everything all right for her...

.Probably futile. But never mind, he thought that it could probably work out between them. It would just be a matter of getting his own head straightened out, wouldn't it? And doing right by the two of _them, _by Naruto and his determination. "...it's going to work out." He pushed aside her hair again, whispered the words against the warm softness of her cheek, the graceful line of her jaw. "I just have to fix it. It's my fault. But I can-"

"I have to fix my house," she whispered urgently, clenching at him again. "I have to-"

"You will." he said to her. "All you have to do is..." he frowned slightly, wondering how he could explain this cleanly and easily. But he did know a little bit about how confidence worked. He told her about what he'd seen, the way Orochimaru could take a subordinate with proven and high levels of skill- and just break that person down. Once their sense of self was destroyed, once their confidence was snapped apart-

"...then that was the end of them. They were immobilized." he told her, keeping it clean and neutral, no ugly details. "Confidence is almost everything. You've had yours broken, that's all." It wasn't the time to get into how she'd been broken down this way all her life, and he could _tell- _no, nothing that complicated. "You're right. _Remember that you're right. _All those..." ghouls, rat-bastards, abusive pieces of festering _shit _"_...people_ in your house, the people in your family that try to tear you down, _they're wrong, _Hinata. They're afraid of you because they know you're right."

_Remember that, _he thought. He could hold her as tightly as he wanted right now, he could force out as many clumsy words of affection as he could mange. He could kiss her, and kiss her again, and try to help her see what he saw, how pretty and smart and fascinating and graceful she _was, _how those fucking _bullies _she was related to were full of crap-

-but he couldn't stay with her. He couldn't stand guard over her, for now. "You'll be fine. You're stronger than you think." he said. She looked up at him, the sun turned her eyes a clearer white, like cold mountain water. She nodded. She pulled herself back together, he could see how practiced she was at doing that, with silent finality.

"Then don't worry about me either." she said, and managed a small smile. A genuine one, though.

"Good." he said. And managed one of his own.

She really was strong. And if nothing else... _yes, _it pained him to admit it, but she had good friends in Naruto and Sakura. She had other people who could support her in his absence.

And he didn't quite think that this village, with no other sharingan user and with a Hokage wrapped around Naruto's baby finger, was exactly going to torture him to death.

_And, _it probably was real... the way it felt now. The twist in his heart, her fingerprints burnt into it. This feeling. He didn't have the words for it. He'd never really felt comfortable expressing his feelings in any kind of detail. If he could have just taken her hand, her sensitive byakugan-taijutsu fingers, and pressed them into his heart, if that would make her feel that he meant it, really _feel _what he was feeling... Then again, a byakugan-user probably could see his heart just fine. He smiled vaguely at that. His mood was strange all the sudden. Not as bad as he'd thought.

Well, better that then more fury. She grew solemn and worried about keeping Kakashi waiting. He managed to talk her into one more kiss, this one so deep that she murmured wordlessly against him; and something deep inside him glowed like the sound of a heavy iron temple bell, a feeling of deep warmth in his chest, his skin tingling where her fingertips pressed into his cheek and neck, the gentle burnmark of her lips. But- _fine_. On with business.

Downstairs past more gawping Hyuga, though to be fair they stared a lot less now. They seemed to be getting used to his presence. The same lazy murmurs seemed to stir amid them in his wake, the traces of _that's the Uchiha boy, _and _well at least there's one left, too bad about the brother. _But he didn't listen too hard, it was too much complicated emotional stuff. He just wanted to walk with Hinata, his arm around her. Her beside him.

It felt very _right _somehow. The two of them together. Clan leader and her protector. It made him remember- _right, _Uchiha Tetsuya, and his own maybe-destiny of clan restoration. All the anger and recrimination just got in the way of the simple logic of that. It wasn't so bad to just feel good for a change, to just _do something right. _Even Naruto and Sakura didn't piss him off so much, when he got to the room where they were sipping tea with Kakashi. Or, to be exact- Kakashi was sipping tea. Naruto and Sakura were loudly talking, as usual. It all felt normal. And it did feel right. That sudden, strange disorienting feeling that he'd walked out on them for only a second, that he'd never really left them, never really run from them. That- sure, they were angry at him for it. But that was just bullshit, just stuff in the way. The team itself was complete, it closed it's circle easily, took him back in.

Without question or hesitation. No stupid jokes from Naruto now, though he wanted to clap Sasuke on the back. He wanted some sign of friendship. So Sasuke took the hand Naruto offered, made a few vaguely affectionate insults. _Shut up, idiot. Dead last. _They were almost terms of damn endearment by now. He let Sakura hug him. He did what he could to hug her back and not be a stiff-necked asshole about it. He let them... and it was like _just letting them was enough._

Apparently he was now more okay with being a big sap than he'd thought. He didn't say anything too embarrassing, he had the sense to keep his mouth shut. But nostalgia was defeating him, it was like the hatred couldn't stand at all until he got himself the hell away from people like this, people who cared about him. It had always had it's hooks sunk deep into him. There were plenty of memories he could summon about being in this team and being happy. Soon enough Kakashi stopped just making idle remarks about Naruto not shouting too loud and Sakura not giving Sasuke too much of a hard time about his shoulder. Hinata had made a polite excuse and slipped away, his team problems were still too much for her. And it was not her problem- it was _his. _He had to fix this. Finally Kakashi put down his book and it vanished back into his side pouch, it was time to go.

Naruto and Sakura and their loud voices, their pushy affection, all of it was left behind and swallowed up by the imposing reinforced silence of the house. Kakashi took him away from the room, down the hall, through the gathering invisible weights, the gathering silent storm of the ANBU. Interesting, this way of subduing and taking in someone who was a flight risk, who might just _flip the fuck out, _start fighting at any instant...

"I think you're ready to do this." Kakashi said calmly. He smiled his one-eyed cryptic smile. And... he was right.

Though Sasuke still wasn't very happy about that tree incident, Kakashi had better not try to tie him to anything else.

"If you don't run then I won't have to tie you up." Kakashi and his infuriatingly calm logic. Naruto's idiot grin a few hours before- _it hurts, huh? Then stop struggling! Ha ha!_

Harrumph harrumph. Stupid Naruto. Stupid Naruto being _right. _Stupid goddamn clumsy idiot Naruto. But the bite of anger was gone, he couldn't summon his rage, or the toxic burn of what he knew was jealousy, the urge to blame all of this on _Naruto, _the one who'd never wavered, never did anything else but hold out a hand into the storm, no matter how hard Sasuke slapped it away, never did anything but try to rescue his friend.

"Try to relax," Kakashi said to him in an undertone. Naruto and Sakura's whispers faded behind the shoji doors that closed between them. The flat glances of Hyuga servants and guards interceded, and the paper maze of Hinata's house closed around them like an origami flower.

"It's good you made it out alive." Kakashi said instead of _I told you so. _Instead of _it didn't make you happy, did it? _ "Don't worry, we're here for you." Like nothing had happened. Like there was a way out of this mess. A light at the end of the tunnel, but they weren't taking him outside. They were taking him further into the house. The guards were now joined by invisible shadows with white porcelain faces. Sasuke could feel them there.

His throat was dry and the words came out with crackled edges. "It's too late for me." He'd resisted them for six years. He'd lived more than half his life for revenge and nothing else. For an end that might prove he was worth something- to someone. Someone who wasn't Naruto. Something that wasn't this team. And this village. And that thin margin of time when he let them start to help him.

"You're alive." Kakashi's tone was almost conversational, his calm was so pervasive that it sucked the panic out of your lungs and veins, dismantled the worried voice in your head. Sasuke looked down at the angular paper hall yawning in front of them. Sunlight on paper rather than the darkness he'd limped into, away from Naruto and the Valley. "You're alive, you're here with us. You know there's a problem. We're here to help you. It's never too late, Sasuke."

The way Kakashi said his name was so different from Orochimaru's hiss. It was an instant key to memories, things he'd forgotten like the long training sessions up on the high rocky plateau, the punishing lessons in chidori and sharingan-taijutsu. Kakashi was a hard taskmaster and he'd been so comforted by that, felt that he was finally being taken seriously. "I don't deserve a second chance." He heard himself say. Maybe he should not have said it.

But Kakashi didn't seem bothered, he could take all of this in stride. He could handle the entire explosive mess of the team, all it's furiously moving parts, even as it had spun apart. Maybe it really did pull itself back together seamless just because he was there. Before he'd arrived, they'd argued and bickered and- Kakashi patted Sasuke's uninjured shoulder. "I said don't worry. We'll take over from here, okay?" His smile that was just one closed eye. "It's all right."

Almost the exact words he'd said to Hinata. Probably Kakashi was just trying to make him feel better.

Even if it was hard to believe he was forgiven, that he even _should _be forgiven...

But it was done, the graceless surrender to the village, this moment he'd avoided for so long, the first step back on the straight and narrow. "Don't worry, we can help." Kakashi said, leading him into the gloved hands of the ANBU.

--

Hinata didn't watch them take Sasuke away. She saw one ANBU officer in the hallway, his mask flipped up, she could see his face. He was just a normal young ninja like herself. Not a fearful demon or a supernatural creature of darkness. But one was enough, she turned away.

She had to remember that this was the right thing to do. And that Sasuke was so adamant about this. She remembered how his arms had locked around her as she lay next to him the night before. They were both upset about how the dinner with Naruto and Sakura had gone, but they were trying to make the best of it. He kissed her and she kissed him back. The warmth of his skin and the feel of his lips was familiar and it brought her heart back into focus.

Back into the picture. She'd been so caught up in that daylight world with Naruto and Sakura, and while she _was _angry with Sasuke, she thought he was being cruel, if not that at least he wasn't trying very hard _not _to be cruel to them...

Or maybe he was doing his best. She trusted him. She did. This just wasn't her business. It wasn't her team. And there were parts of Sasuke that she just didn't know yet, parts of herself that he didn't know about yet either. It was so early on, just the first hint that maybe something might come of it, a brief little blaze, a little accidental affair...

...just like the heroines in the romance novels... always getting themselves into trouble and falling in love like they'd tripped over their own feet, falling into the right set of arms, finding the right other person just by chance.

And she couldn't do this for Sasuke, couldn't put his team back together or deliver him like a thank you gift to Naruto's doorstep, make it all right again. All she could do is remember how they'd lay together and she'd been almost asleep. Sasuke had been whispering to her, saying that it was his fault and he had to fix it. "I have to fix it." His voice so single-minded and obsessively determined, like it was all he could think of.

So it was out of Hinata's hands. She couldn't do anything. So she should do nothing.

Look away.

She had permission, Sasuke had told her he'd take care of it, she didn't have to worry about him. And he didn't have to worry about her. And- well, it was up to her to make things at least _look _all right.

And maybe then underneath that they wouldn't be so bad, they might start to be a bit better. Naruto and Sakura were her guests and she had to be a good host. But it wasn't just that, she wanted to be around them. To just feel like their friend again, like things hadn't changed too much. She knew they didn't blame her, she was so insulated from all of this. She'd been right in the middle but somehow they kept her safe and Sasuke kept her safe too. She could be there but stay unscathed.

So the least she could do was get them a decent breakfast. And after that, a proper guest room.

They weren't doing very well, they seemed to still be staring after Sasuke, wondering what happened to him, why he was there so briefly. Even when Hatake Kakashi took Sasuke away and Hinata suggested they go to get something to eat, that things should go back to normal now...

...because there was nothing else to do but wait now, let the ANBU work. And let Sasuke fight whatever battle he was so determined to fight. Alone, it seemed, as always. They were resigned to that, but they seemed to need a minute to adjust. Their teammate back, so briefly. Back and gone again.

The servants brought tea and coffee, orange juice for Naruto and some for Hinata too, because being around Naruto was an excuse to be silly too, to be free like he was. Sakura asked for the legal details and Naruto listened, his bright blue eyes glittering at Hinata like the clear sky outside. They sat near the window so they were in the sun, outside it was warm and it was a beautiful day. Hinata explained once more, this time completely so they wouldn't have to worry. Sasuke wasn't going anywhere. The ANBU would do whatever was necessary and then-

Then anything that happened next would be up to her. She could protect him. The village couldn't kill him without taking him off the property. They couldn't take him off the property without having to go through the Hyuga clan. Neji disapproved but _she was the clan leader. _And it was important, protecting one of their own. Neji didn't agree but Sasuke _was _part of their clan. Even their own records called the two clans one and the same.

Main house and branch house...

But before that, something better and more fraternal, something other than people just killing one another and burning jutsu marks into eachother and tearing eachother apart for little pieces of power...

She told them, and they understood, and the servants came with more food. Naruto was always so happy over simple things like this, meals and a place to sleep, the simple luxury of friends and love and a family. It was always new and amazing to her, somehow who was so easy and free with happiness. She watched Sakura watch Naruto too, she could see that Sakura felt it too, the heat of Naruto's easy joy, like it really wasn't that complicated at all. Like everyone could be that happy.

So different from Sasuke.

And he had always been there, unspoken, the name that Naruto and Sakura talked around, but who's absence was always felt, like a fourth person in the room. An empty space cut out of the middle of the both of them, even in their marriage. And Neji said horrible things about that, about how _he _really had to wonder what was going on between them, marrying and being so focused on _some missing-nin, _Neji said that like it was a curse, like it was a filthy word. Missing-nin.

_Disloyalty_. But it was more than that, it was the old scar in Neji's side. That wound had almost killed him. And... Hinata shouldn't judge, she'd never almost lost her life for someone and then had to wonder, to think that this person probably didn't even care.

Naruto and Sakura were talking to one another. They let Hinata just sit with them, and she didn't have to talk until she was ready. She could just be with them.

"Naruto-kun. Sakura-san. Um.."

Until she was ready to step up and help them with this. Even though she hesitated, and wondered if she should say anything at all.

"No, it's okay Hinata-chan. What is it?" Sakura replied, a little less worried now.

"...nothing."

"Awww Hinata-chan, it's okay-"

"I just wanted to make sure..."

That they were okay. That things were okay. It was pointless and empty, she could _see _that nothing was okay.

Sakura nodded distractedly, she seemed to be thinking rapidly to herself. Her eyes never seemed to focus on what was in front of her, her gaze was fixed somewhere in the middle distance of her thoughts. Hinata looked down and her knuckles were white. Her lips grimly compressed. She was drinking her third cup of coffee, and she didn't seem to notice what she was doing at all. "It's all right, I'm just.. " Sakura sighed. And she shook her head.

"It's all right, Hinata-chaaaan." Naruto said to her, singsong. He slung his arm around her shoulders. "We've got our teammate back."

"..someone just needs to let our teammate in on this." Sakura's hollow focused concentrated distanced, furiously calculating glance beaming over Hinata shoulder, into some future and some past she couldn't see or even imagine, she was _not _part of their team.

"..he doesn't mean it. He's just being a dumbass. It's not serious." Hinata was watching Naruto say this to Sakura from the outside, where it was safe and she could run away and hide any time she wanted. "Oh, come on, Sakura-chan. He always says that crap. It doesn't mean anything, it's just _him."_

"... maybe if it was the first time, the second time.. the third time... "

"We promised we'd-"

_"I know what we promised_. I'm not giving up. I'm just... I just wish he'd act like he cared about us for once. I wish he's just..." Sakura seemed to remember that Hinata was there, that this wasn't something they normally said in front of her. "...I'm sorry. Listen, Hinata-chan, don't worry, everything's fine..." She pinched her nosebridge and braced her elbow on the table. "...I'm okay. Just.. give me a minute."

And it wasn't Hinata's problem. Everyone was just inviting her to walk away from it.

"Hinata-chan, it's just that we don't want you to get hurt." Sakura sighed, from across that same distance. "It's kind of a mess." Then her careful, brave smile for Hinata's benefit. "It _is _okay. I had no idea, I mean... but maybe it will be good for him to not be so alone anymore."

"...he's not alone anyway, he's just being stupid." Naruto insisted through a mouthful of rice.

"Maybe..." Sakura reflective now, her eyes on the horizon outside, the sunlight falling over them, sparkling on the simple everyday white rice bowls, the little teacups, the steaming coffee pot. Simple and everyday and yet they were so safe and so untouched, the three of them. They never went to the dark places that Sasuke had thrown himself into. "Maybe it's different if it's not just someone he's friends with... if it's.. you know, a girl."

"Heh. Maybe. But he'd better act right, Hina-chaaan, otherwise me and Sakura-chan'll kick his ass into next week." Naruto grinned, infectious and like nothing could stop him. Nothing had to be worried about.

"That's right. If he doesn't treat you well, tell us. Call me immediately." Sakura's cooler, gentle but forceful smile, her affectionate bossiness.

"Yeah! Doctor's orders." Naruto's arm around her again, cuddling her and they were her friends, she just couldn't imagine how Sasuke had thrown this away. Love was something so precious, you didn't just walk away from it. You didn't walk out on the people in your life, and it _wasn't her problem, _it wasn't her business. His taut whisper, _I have to fix this. _She _was _angry with him, she wanted him to not be this way!

"Yeah... well, he doesn't really mean it." Naruto said. Subdued.

"...It's okay Hinata-chan, it just hurts, that's all."

"He _does _care about us, come on don't say that Sakura-chan-"

"...I'm not saying he doesn't. He just.. _acts _like he doesn't. I looked him in the eye last night and I couldn't tell if he really cared about us at all." And then as Naruto started to protest, Sakura said with hurried firmness. "-no, _I know _he doesn't mean it. It's just so exhausting to deal with him when he's like this."

"He's just being stupid."

The two of them talking to one another, reassuring one another. They were so determined, all for one person. One person who didn't even...

...bother to make an effort not to be hostile to them.

Or did the best he could but Hinata couldn't understand it, having this friendship. She couldn't imagine pushing her own team apart this way, taking Shino's concern and Kiba's rough affection, just _throwing it in their face-_

"So don't worry about it, Hinata-chan. He'll stop being a dumbass soon, he just has to do stuff like this. S'the way he is."

Sakura accepted that. But only for a minute. She couldn't pretend anymore.

"-_I know, _but why can't he just stop acting this way? It's been so long, why does he still have to do this?"

"-it's the way he is-"

"He's almost nineteen! He's only a bit younger than me! If I can grow up and you can grow up and _we _aren't kids anymore why can't he-"

"Aw, Sakura-chan... he doesn't mean it-"

"We always say that!"

"He doesn't mean it! I know he cares about us!"

"Why can't he act like it? If he does and he won't admit it, he's making us go through this for nothing, and-"

"He's our best friend! He's _my friend, _my first friend-"

"-I know, I _want _him back, I know we'll never give up and we promised. But he _has _to stop this-"

"...maybe if we don't... You know, I'm just saying... if we don't take it maybe he won't talk to us at all."

"... No... I.. we won't put up with that."

Sudden flat silence.

Before that, their voices raised and their eyes bright and flashing in the sunlight, the sparkling of dishes and glassware around them like razor edges. Hinata cupped her hands around the warm ring of her teacup and watched, silently like she wasn't there it all. It was like they'd forgotten she was there. She had an uncomfortable feeling, as if she'd walked in on them in their bedroom or-

"It doesn't matter. We're there for him." Naruto growled low like that when he meant it. It was the voice of his raw determination. "He's our best friend and _we promised."_

Sakura's silent face, the grim set to her lips. Her gaze focused far away. Calculating. It was like a doctor assessing a patient, having to decide when nothing more could be done for them.

It was like Hinata was seeing something private that she should not have been allowed to witness, some private part of their marriage. They changed the subject and they talked about Naruto's new mission and his elemental jutsu. After that, Sakura's progress with melding her own elemental affinity to her medical ninjutsu and after that- nothingness, just empty sunny things. Just their simple happiness, or what they would have had...

...except for that dark shadow, that unspoken name. Hanging heavy over them all like a dark cloud.

An unsolvable problem.

Their problem, not hers.

--

Sasuke had some idea of what was going on. They were taking him away. _Away _being distance. They were taking him to a far corner of the property. They must be, they had to interrogate him in secrecy and they- _wait, _he thought. That scroll on the wall, it's broken ink Zen circle. He'd thought they were walking down subsequent halls all with copies of the same scroll- but no, look, it was missing a tassel at the end. One corner had only frayed red silk threads. _No, _it was the same one, and they were walking in circles.

"...genjutsu..." he muttered. It was a bit annoying anyway. He expected it, but-

"That's just the standard procedure." Kakashi said. His hand was still warm and heavy on Sasuke's good shoulder. And his voice was the same warm, subtle weight.

Fine. Expected but annoying. Same for the shadows of the ANBU that trailed them like traces of smoke.

All that he could see was himself and Kakashi. Anyone who watched them would see only two people, but-

-_no, _they were not alone. The ANBU were there, silent moving figures. They were in the back parts of the central house now. The air was flecked with dust through slats of sunlight that crept in. The shoji that cut the daylight apart were abandoned at open angles. The tatami rooms they passed were either disarrayed or stacked with stored boxes and stripped bare. There were chips on the wood varnish, ragged chewed patterns. Completely unused, and now Sasuke was fairly certain they were actually going somewhere. There were no Hyuga here, no servants, this entire wing was back in the narrow-halled warren that made up the rear shell of the house.

This area too, he dimly recalled, was surrounded outside with a small dense forest. There were willow trees planted all over this back part of the central building. That wooded area continued out for a few hundred yards. He had not have the time, the freedom, the space in his own head to go out and traverse the property, see what was where. But he'd been on the roof, looked out at their land folding out under him, sectioned with woods and open gardens and the black ceramic caps of other buildings, guest houses, gardener's sheds. He had some idea of what was where. This woods had presented itself to him as a thick bed of needles, raw wooden spines growing up around the back part of the house like a tangle of thorns. The trees were bare but the ground was hidden beneath them, he'd only been able to see their interlocking claws from where he stood on the roof. The places under them would be quite shadowed, even in the piercing mid-afternoon sun.

A sunny day, a painfully clear blue sky. A few entirely unserious, lazy white clouds, fat and fluffy. A beautiful spring day, the daylight silvering the dark circles under Hinata's eyes, somehow giving her grief and weariness a glitter of nobility. The sun flashed him across the eyes as they left the house through a blazing rectangle of open door, spots burnt into his vision for a moment, after that long genjutsu of halls and deep shadow. He looked up as they moved him forward- not just Kakashi, not just Kakashi's hand- _they, _the ANBU. They were there, they were all around him. He'd felt them like prickles on the back of his neck for hours, they must have infiltrated and staked out. He couldn't _see _them- not yet. But-

-never mind. He was being arrested. He was being taken to be interrogated, where they'd stuff him into a small and dark room and keep him there for a good long time. He looked up, into the blue dizziness of the sky, the hot glassy dappling of the sun over the untidy, forgotten little garden they passed through. A beautiful sunny day for his arrest and interrogation. It seemed wrong. But the day after the massacre, the sun had risen again into a crystal blue sky. And-

-yes, the universe didn't give half a fuck about him, his little problems, his insignificant life, his-

-_no. _He had to not do that, piss himself off on purpose. Had to stop thinking like that. _Stop it. _

Because he hadn't really said goodbye to Hinata. Not properly. And it was by her choice- _because you aren't leaving, _she said. And it meant that she trusted him, and also that his purpose was clear, he had to come back to her. He had to get himself through this alive, come back to her alive and, more than that, put back together. Maybe some snake-shaped incisions in him, some scars to add to his truly impressive collection, but alive. And he had to keep his fucking head straight. Now.

...a bit tricky. All these masked shadows on his trail...

Making the sunlight and the blue sky seem so hollow, like it was just a thin illusion over darkness and the memories in his head. The parts he just _did not _remember. The parts he'd probably made himself forget because they were just too horrible to look at. Even _he _couldn't bear it. And he did consider himself tougher, more hardened than most. He'd seen horrible things, the blood flying from the cut Itachi made in his mother's back, the way Itachi jerked and twisted the blade and the force of it severed...

..their mother's spine. That wet rubbery sound. Things like that. Things like the children, and the dogs- Sasuke turned his head slightly, edged Kakashi into the field of his vision, shaded his eyes behind his long bangs. Thought about the dogs. Orochimaru had hurt children. And he'd done horrible things to animals. It was the cats that had gotten to Sasuke the most. The cats and the little kids. But the dogs...

Stupid half-memory, Hinata telling him that Kakashi had witnessed at Naruto and Sakura's wedding. He'd summoned his ninja hounds. Nine witnesses, all with little bow ties for the occasion...

Cross out the rest of the memories, the dogs and the experiments, the butchering of a litter of puppies- no. This was useless. This was not something to remember. It was meaningless. He'd willed it to be unremembered.

To fade away into any of those sinkholes of absolute blackness... There were many, dropouts and dark spots in his memories. Whole weeks gone, seasons lopped down to fleeting memories of days, single touches of time, as if the drugs he'd been given to help train his body that much faster had accelerated his mind as well. Broken some crucial machine part of his memory. That, and Orochimaru's hypnotism, like everything inside his favorite pupil, his apprentice, his chosen one was just stage sets, just memories to backlight or push into darkness and...

..anyway, Sasuke knew intellectually that other people suffered. Other people were orphaned violently in wars and in revenge killings, in bloody clan feuds. Others still were tortured, had their minds picked apart by enemy villages, by interrogators using hypnotism as an icepick and chisel. Or as a sledgehammer, and it wasn't as if _he _was the only one in the world who had ever been tormented this way, who had ever found himself all alone in the cold and dark as a small child.

It just felt that way.

And he thought it _should _be that way. He didn't believe in any gods or spirits, there was no comfort in religion for him. There was even less in the insulting, stupid preachy empty words that others parroted at him, these people had _no idea _what he felt. Their little clichés were worthless, powerless in the face of what he was going through. There was just nothing, no point to any of it, nothing but waste and pain and loss-

-unless, the loss made him stronger. The loss made him so unique because he was the only one who could ever have lost this much, have felt this much pain. It meant that he was the one who had struggled the hardest. The Uchiha survivor. The strongest of all, flayed the most by pain.. yes, unimaginable to everyone else. He was stronger and better and superior- better than all others for it. Because of it. Made the strongest in the entire world...

It should be that way. It should have made him the best. Special. The only one who had ever suffered this much.

Kakashi had been annoying about it. Refused to let him get away with the conceit of it- _I'll kill that person closest to you! _Something like that. Kakashi had turned it around on him- _that person is already dead. _Defeated his logic. Destroyed the pretense of his specialness.

_Pissed _him off.

No way he would listen to Kakashi after that. _No _fucking _way. _

Stupid. _Fucking stupid _of him. Pointless. He shook his head crossly. Tendons in his neck pulled at bones and ligaments in his shoulder. It's dull bloody smear of pain.

Kakashi felt it when he tensed up, it was annoying. "... easy now." Kakashi said, his voice level and calm. "You're okay. Rght?"

No, he wasn't. "...of course." he muttered impatiently.

Sensed Kakashi weighing whether to ask, but going through with it. "Scared?"

"_No." _

That pat on the back again. Kakashi trying to reassure him. Or maybe Kakashi playing the good cop now, and whomever was waiting on the other end of this walk would be the bad one, the one who tied him up and screamed at him while Kakashi lounged in the corner and made vaguely soothing noises, that kind of manipulation. That kind of ancient interrogation bullshit.

And he'd learned that Orochimaru did all the butchering mostly to get a reaction out of him. It wasn't for science or anything like that, those little kids didn't know anything Orochimaru needed to torture out of them. The real target wasn't under the knife, he was standing outside the red circle of the dangling lightbulb, the splash range of the blood. Trying to keep from throwing up, showing any weakness. Trying to prove he was cold-hearted, trying to prove that this didn't matter to him, that nothing did, that he'd never had any compassion anyway so Orochimaru didn't have to rip it out of him and dismember it. It was all to get a rise out of him, so he drew that knifecut in his mind, that line of fire. The emotions would stay inside. His flesh and his face would stay cold, motionless. Two parts, divided, body and mind, only one would feel anything.

So he was confident that he certainly did not _look _scared at all.

And maybe he did still trust Kakashi. It was too much nostalgia, overpowering him. It was such a complete illusion. The team had closed their arms around him, and Kakashi's hand on his shoulder now connected to Kakashi's hand in the past, sealing the bite in his neck closed. Kakashi shaping his hand around the chidori. That compelling illusion, that Kakashi was still his teacher. That Kakashi would not hurt him.

And that it was hard to believe that anyone would, that these were enemy agents of a hostile village. That any harm would come to him, he'd just have to answer some annoying questions and not get too angry with them. And cooperate and spill his guts and...

...surely no danger. No chance of real torture.

There must have been another genjutsu like a thin layer of ricepaper under the first. The little garden was small but intricate. It's little stone path looped.. and looped, and looped around endless sides of a little pond with bullrushes and the orange murmur of koi flanks under the murky green water. The angle of the sun on the limestone face of the sundial tilting... tilting again, like it's angle was being reset, time run backwards and forwards like a pendulum on a very short string.

It was more meditative than disorienting. The endless sides of the pond were like the steady deep rhythm of a temple bell, the deep chord struck in his heart by Hinata's touch and her warmth, like his own heartbeat when he was trying to meditate- and having an easier time of it than usual. Maybe he really _wasn't _afraid, maybe he thought he'd have no problem doing this, that there was no danger...

But finally they took him out of the circles and they got where they were going.

One of those side buildings. Wooden face and cross-slats, raw cedar shakes down it's low slope of roof, ceramic sealing them from above. The ornamental dragon coiled up on the peak, watching over the door. Stupid superstition. Inside a storage area and heavy padlocks hanging like slow dull bells on the door. Medics were there. ANBU, though they wore normal medic clothing, peered down at him with scrubbed uncovered faces.

They sat him down on a crate so they could look him over. He wasn't amused by this, he _did not _like taking off his clothes for strangers. No, not even his shirt. The air was still chilly out of the sun, he was covered with goosebumps in seconds, and- well, it was probably necessary. He cooperated and sat down and put up with it. They had to make sure he was healthy enough to withstand questioning. If he was likely to drop dead of something they had to have medics on hand to revive him. That sort of crap. He sighed. Raised his arms when told. Lowered them. Clenched his fist so they could take his blood pressure. Endured the poking and bothered with one glare in Kakashi's direction, as if this were Kakashi's fault. Close enough, though. Two medic-nins, a collection of syringes and glass culturing plates and little mysterious bottles full of medical stuff and books of medical jutsu marks spread out on the crates they'd pulled over. They drew blood and started taking skin samples and swabs and-

-_fine, _they had to make sure he was who he said he was, you could henge your body but not your DNA and, anyway, he ignored them and their gibberish medical talk at one another. He wasn't a scientist and he didn't give a fuck about the Uchiha family genotype and it's marker on chromosome whatever. He ignored them successfully until they started to argue with one another. He was half-naked and cold and when their fussing around with tissues and blood samples suddenly didn't seem to be going anywhere, he pulled his attention back to the present and glared at them.

They didn't notice. They were busy yapping at one another.

"... no, run it again, it has to match."

"I've run it three times. This is the correct result. It's-"

"No, that's impossible. It has to match his blood. See for yourself."

They were both looking at the little glass slides with bits of blood and skin on them. Sasuke sighed, heavily, let them know that yes, he was annoyed and they should hurry up. But somehow the little bits were so fascinating that neither of the damn medics seemed to remember that he was there at all.

"It doesn't match his blood. It doesn't even match the skin from his arm. It doesn't match the culture we took from that mess on his shoulder-"

"Where was this from?"

"His chest."

"Then he's a chimera."

"No, that's not what we have on record."

"Well, given that he's practiced forbidden jutsu that-"

"That alter his _genetic structure? _No, that's impossible-"

"Well, you explain this. The tissue on his chest is completely genetically dissimilar to that of his blood and-"

"...wait." Sasuke whispered.

But that...

...that was a hallucination.

That was part of Orochimaru's grand illusion, the illusion of his death and of Itachi's death, of teammates that maybe never were, of everything.

"That didn't happen." he managed. It had to be an illusion. It had to have been. That whole mess with Hawk and the deepening weirdness and the sense of unreality as he...

"What didn't happen?" The medics both looked at him like they expected an answer. Like there _was _one.

He was too uneasy suddenly to be annoyed. He looked down at his hands, and the little puncture marks on his arm and the tiny scrape where they'd taken tissue samples, another stinging lightly on the side of his neck. Juugo's flesh melded to his, his own throat torn open, the ragged angle of his ribs visible even to him, the violent whiteness of the bone under a coat of fresh blood- no. It wasn't possible. It _didn't _happen.

It couldn't have happened.

It was a trick, that's what it was. It was all a trick. It was Orochimaru messing with him- _again. _Orochimaru finding new and more intricate ways to _fuck _with his _head. _Simple.

"I don't know." he muttered at the medic nins. He didn't have anything else to tell them. Finally some ANBU person came in and asked for the results. That got the medics out of the way. There was signing of release forms and crap like that. They agreed that he was healthy enough to withstand interrogation, blah blah blah. Sasuke ignored them. He was very good at using indifference like a blunt instrument, a way of forcibly shoving things aside and out of his thoughts. He was... certain, almost certain, as certain as you could be with someone who lived and breathed illusion and mind control and headgames like Orochimaru did...

..that that whole _fiasco _hadn't happened.

Or if it happened, it happened in a very reduced sense.

As a drug-induced lucid dream in Sasuke's head, maybe. A situation where he was run like a half-conscious puppet. Chance were that he'd dreamed the entire damn thing up.

And anyway, Itachi was not dead. That eight-tailed octopus demon thing wasn't dead either. Madara was possibly a bad dream or...

...or...

Well, Sasuke didn't know what the _fuck _had happened. Everything was a tangled mess.

"Please come with us, Uchiha-san." the masked ANBU person said. They always were polite, their voices as thin and impersonal as a bakufu secretary. Please and thank you. Please put your shirt back on. Please come with us.

"Don't worry about this part either," Kakashi said as they marched him off through the little garden and through another stand of bare trees. "We just need to ask you some questions."

Questions that didn't have answers.

"Don't worry, we'll help you remember."

No doubt.

More walking in circles.

A new place. This was a bigger building. It was paper and wood and tatami, probably unused guest quarters. There was a kitchen set away from the main hall and the paper walls and screens. Some of the ANBU were in there making coffee. Kakashi came down the hall, his bare feet on the dusty wood. He had two coffee cups steaming, one was chipped slightly, white ceramic like bone against shiny blue enamel. The disturbing hallucination-memory of his exposed ribs. Sasuke didn't decline the cup. He didn't touch it either. His stomach corkscrewed into tight doubled knots. They hadn't blindfolded him, and they weren't obviously trying to destroy his sense of direction just yet. But that strange endless walk in the garden made him suspicious. And the way he'd reacted to the sight of the first masked ANBU, the first empty porcelain face- _no reaction_. As if the sudden appearance of the grim reaper with a dark hood and a bone-white face was just part of the scenery...

"Hey, hey.. don't be nervous." Kakashi was saying. He had that flat note in his voice so it made everything he said less threatening somehow. He was the only one Sasuke could stand to talk to sometimes- or had been able to stand, back before he'd torn off in his headlong dash to nowhere. Running away from Konoha had really been no more considered or planned than _running back to it, _had it? Just as mindless. Just as much a puppet on goddamned _strings, _getting yanked around by Orochimaru.

Or if not by Orochimaru...

That red eye in his memory. Red sharigan eye, cut strangely in the middle so the pupil looked edged and shattered. He'd thought it was Itachi, just another Itachi-memory, a tsukuyomi bruise on his psyche, but..

..why just one eye?

"...come on, don't get all angry either." Kakashi continued.

Sasuke sat opposite him. Outside it was late afternoon. The sun was slanting against the other side of the house, Sasuke had noted that carefully when they brought him in. Late afternoon. There was dust in this tatami room too, and it's mats were a bit worn. More chipped paint and varnish. It was out of repair, probably hadn't been used for the better part of a year. But the other ANBU, moving like black cat shadows through the building, had lit lanterns and jumpstarted a generator somewhere. The electric paper lantern dangling over Sasuke's head hummed thinly with it's current. Other ANBU were around, they were in the walls, or at least their listening devices and ears were. They were in other rooms, listening and planning and marking more endless documents, endless secret files. Most of them about Sasuke himself. All their information about him. There were no whispers, no sounds of discussion. That meant they either communicated silently, or there was more genjutsu, more illusions of silent inhuman watchers.

But Kakashi wore only his half-mask, his familiar mild grey one-eyed gaze, his calm voice. His bare toes wiggled now and then under the file he had open in his lap. He periodically raised it to his face, his coffee cup in his other hand. That same silly sleight of hand, that simple trick. Sasuke thought Kakashi could at least show his face _this _time. But then again, he found it suddenly hard to care. He felt a bit different, a bit slower to rage and worry. So they'd probably drugged him. Not in the coffee, probably by touch. Maybe Kakashi's hand on his shoulder had traces of sedative on it. Kakashi had worn a glove. His thumb had so casually ended up against the side of Sasuke's neck. Lots of blood vessels there. So, fine. They'd drugged him.

And now he was going to have a _nice relaxed chat _with Kakashi.

All this typical interrogation bullshit... the faux-friendliness and the way you got the subject talking about unimportant things so you could slide them easily into talking about the information you wanted. Sasuke knew all of this. He'd watched Orochimaru. He'd interrogated captured ninjas and even a few civilians. He'd tortured a few of them- easy stuff, just hang them up from the ceiling and whip the crap out of them until they passed out. Leave them there for a few days and wait for fatigue and thirst and their injuries to wear them down. Come back and they'd suddenly be just _delighted _to talk to you. So this was old and completely unmysterious to him, all of this.

And that tremor in the pit of his stomach was just him being a fucking little coward, obviously. There was nothing to be afraid of.

"Fine." he said to Kakashi. He meant- _get on with it._

Kakashi got on with it. The invisible ANBU ears all around them must have perked up, because even the rustling in the kitchen stopped. Kakashi went over the procedures. Sasuke listened, impassive. Impassive inside too, he felt too disoriented to put a hand to his rage, or to even make much sense of the little faultline of worry. Kakashi ran it down for him anyway, as if he didn't even notice how quiet Sasuke had become. The ANBU had arrested him as a missing-nin and their job was to ascertain what damage he'd done to the village, and what threat he posed to them now. That was all they did, Kakashi told him. The matter of how the village would punish or pardon him would be a matter for the Hokage's office.

Which meant that it would be a matter of how much BS the Hokage would let Naruto get away with. And Naruto got to do anything he wanted. Sasuke was probably saved now. Saved. Safe.

Kakashi just needed his confession and his intentions. Simple things really. Just formalities. Just stuff to get out of the way, since _of course _Sasuke was impatient to get going and of course the ANBU understood that and here, just take this pen and write on this scroll here and sign _here _and here-

Sasuke fixed Kakashi in the black crosshairs of his sights. Did he trust this man? His sensei, yes. But right now? No, this was his interrogator.

The pen had been put into his hand. Or maybe he'd actually taken it of his free will. Time was sort of normal.. mostly normal... he just couldn't quite remember here and there where he'd done things. He looked down at the scroll in front of him. It was beside his half-empty coffee cup.

"...I can't just tell you?" It was a pain in the ass, writing.

"Written confession for the legal records." Kakashi said lightly. "Unless you want to talk more." That close-eyed sphinx smile. And _no, _Sasuke didn't want to talk.

So fine- he'd run away from the village. And he'd collaborated with their enemy. _And _he'd done a lot of other things, more than he could remember. He'd tried to kill Naruto twice. He'd- maybe- worked with Akatsuki. He'd gone charging after the phantom named Itachi, assuming this person even existed anymore. He'd killed people for Madara. He'd done all of this while completely out of his goddamn mind, too.

"..is this enough? I can't remember the rest of it." he muttered at Kakashi.

But no- that was just what they needed.

Porcelain white-face came to take the scroll. Appeared in the doorway like a strange disconnected shadow, something that had pulled itself off the wall, appearing in the wrong angle of light. Sasuke blinked at the figure. He suddenly had the feeling that it wasn't there at all. Wait, his coffee cup was empty now. The pen was no longer in his hand, where had he put it?

"Now just tell us your stated intent going into the interview process? It won't take a minute."

Sasuke blinked at Kakashi, Kakashi's half-face. His single grey eye. The shock of cloud-white hair over it. There were bandages on one of Kakashi's arms, why hadn't Sasuke noticed them before? Wait- there was only one coffee cup in the room, Kakashi wasn't drinking anything. _Wait. _

"Just tell us your intent. We can move on then."

His intent? His...

Sasuke was looking at his hands. The scrapes there. They were where they had been before, as were the puncture marks in his arms. Where he'd been injected and scraped and where they'd found the remains of Juugo's flesh and-

"...to find out what happened." he muttered. His voice felt strange. Drugs. He was already drugged. "...I need to find out what Orochimaru did... can't make decisions until I know... I can't know about staying in Konoha until I know if it's true."

And as Kakashi nodded and made some notes- wait, the pen was in Kakashi's hand now! What the hell? _No, _wait just a minute!

"You're using drugs." Sasuke told him. "You've drugged me to force a-"

"No drugs yet. Just genjutsu." Kakashi seemed completely unconcerned about this! Sasuke skewered his unconcerned face on the barbed end of a nice hard glare.

"...you're using _genjutsu _to force a confession and make me cooperate with you... I'd cooperate anyway." he growled.

"No, not exactly." Kakashi snapped his fingers and the world shattered-

-soundlessly. Jarring silence, jarring like something had exploded and then nothing fell or crashed or-

"That one just exposes your intentions." His same half-face smile. "Looks like you really do mean to cooperate."

Standard procedure, nothing more.

Trust was a strange issue now. An issue for the outside world. What went on here felt subtly different, as if this guest house was not quite real like the morning had been, like waking up in Hinata's bed and that half-conversation with Naruto and Sakura. It was a bit like the circuitous route through that half-dead stone garden had been the start of a dull, greyed out dream.

Or like he was half-asleep.

That genjutsu that Kakashi had dispelled probably wasn't the only one. Or maybe all that talking about procedure had been meant to trigger a hypnotic state. Sasuke knew a bit about that- and for the same reason as usual, having been Orochimaru's star pupil...

Or his favorite toy. You could create a hypnotic suggestion, embed it in your subject- then trigger it. Sasuke had seen Orochimaru do all of this. He'd watched through tired eyes just like this, in fact. He'd been so worn out from the training, and when it wasn't the sheer physical battering of it, it was the lack of sleep, or it was the fact that he was surrounded with other desperate violent people and had to watch his back, or it was the sheer disgust for his surroundings. That constant stench of death and blood and terror. The creep of it like mildew under the harsh scent of ammonia and antiseptics. So he didn't think too much or too hard about what was going on. Thinking wasn't going to get him anywhere- so he'd shut off his thinking as much as he could. He'd watched...

...and now, in the present, in this weird twilight state he was in now, they actually were blindfolding him.

Baseline readings, they said.

They were asking him questions...

Stupid things. His name. His birthdate. The date today. The name of his first academy teacher. What he'd had for breakfast.

Scratchings of pen nibs on scroll paper.

When they took the bindings off his eyes, there was a needle taped into his arm. It was nothing, he was told by the porcelain-face. Water to keep him hydrated. He was given a handful of small pills. Red and white. What were they? He couldn't focus on the long-sounding name. Kakashi was not alone again, the shadow with the white face was back, this time he was really there. But their voices were so similar suddenly. Sasuke had a strange feeling that they actually were throwing their voices, that Kakashi's mask moved as if he was just mouthing the words while the masked ANBU figure spoke. Or if they both had the same voice and both were actually being spoken for by someone outside of the room. He still could swear that the ANBU figure was not actually there at all. And for a while, he wondered if Kakashi wasn't either, if nether of them were in the room. If he was in fact, talking to empty space, while invisible ANBU in the walls around him listened...

...it felt that way.

They asked him questions.

He was drowsy, but they said he wouldn't fall asleep and he didn't.

He blinked at the room. It seemed different. Had they moved him? The sun was different, slanted at another angle now. It lapped across the hall from windows over there, a white corner of it fell across Kakashi's bare toes.

Or the space where Kakashi seemed to be.

"Tell us what happened to the best of your ability." the voice that they shared said.

Sasuke stared at his hands. Puncture marks. Mismatched genetics. Proof out of place, it couldn't be true.

"Begin on the night you left."

It couldn't be true because it was just _too unreal, _killing Orochimaru and killing jinchuriki and killing Madara and killing Itachi, it was too much like an idealized fantasy. Even Sasuke knew that, even _he _was suspicious when people sucked up to him and everything went his way.

As fucking arrogant as he was_. _Arrogant, but not fucking _stupid, _thank you.

"Start at that night."

"I don't remember..." he muttered.

"Start with what you remember and we'll help you remember the rest."

"...can't remember..."

"Yes you can."

The night with the shimmering leaves.

The night of the Four in the shadows, weird lumpy black shapes of four arms and two heads and mushroom-pale skin mottled with that sickly familiar chain of bruises.

Now it was starting. Now he was blindfolded again. This was just the interview, the part where they asked him questions. But the questions were changing now. His name. His birthdate. Now, an account of what had happened...

...and though he said he didn't remember and he was sure he didn't, there were the leaves in front of his bound eyes.

The shimmering leaves, the way they caught the moonlight in early summer. That night, he'd been putting things away, tiding up the apartment as if he were just going off on any other mission...

The leaves had been outside the window and he'd paused, the pack heavy on his shoulders as he stood, contemplating the scatter of light over the trees. This familiar scene outside his fairly decent apartment, his fairly comfortable life.. at least in terms of physical comforts. He had a pretty good place to live, a good place to sleep and study and think.

Of course, all of that comfort had been only yet _another_ reason why he should run as far away as he could.

He still had no idea what those pills had been. His memory was sharper, more vivid and colored and immediately visible to him. The leaves were there, the baleful yellow crescent eye of the waxing moon. The solid wooden shelf under the hand he braced against it, the photograph turned down so he didn't have to look at their faces. Or his own, his belief in this stupid idea that he could be happy and alive again, that he didn't have to kill himself symbolically to atone for not being killed directly. They must have blindfolded him to intensify this visual recollection.

"What do you see?"

Leaves. Moon. That night. The photograph turned over.

"What do you see next?"

Sakura. On the road, her eye wide and frightened, her frustration and then her desperation. The sound of air rattling out of her lungs as he struck the back of her neck.

"What happened after that?"

Down the road, past the sentries, out of the lazily defended wall and thorough the holes in it where he knew how to get out, how to get past. Some simple excuse at the ready just in case he got caught. Documents in his pocket where he'd forged permission to leave that night- off to train in the forests close by. Kakashi's signature was easy to fake with the sharingan.

Beyond the gate and the trees and the moon, out in the darkness... the misshapen forms of the Four, like they were broken puppets bent and splintered by a particularly cruel child.

And now a fifth with them, the empty place where he'd stand and be the brand new toy...

And where they'd take him to their master...

And that little grassy hill out of sight of the village walls where he'd met them and accepted their terms, sold himself out.

Pens scratching. That constant scratch of pen nibs on paper.

They did something to him. Some kind of jutsu. He couldn't remember. He couldn't remember.

"Go back to that moment, what do you see?"

They beat the crap out of him and rubbed his face in it and through that- manipulated him into _thinking _he wanted to _leave-_

No, he couldn't remember.

"Look again, what do you see?"

So he'd sat for the rest of the day up in the trees and finally dragged himself home to wash off his bruises and bandage up the worst of the cuts. He could see the blood washing down the sink, little traces of red and grime, nothing too bad, just little flesh wounds. After that, packing up. After that, the photograph. Sakura. After that, the darkness and the way the Four talked and the way their eyes were vacant, like they were just empty painted faces, just masks on hand puppets. Somewhere out in the darkness unfolding down from the mountains, the hand that moved them was reeling them back in, and Sasuke would go with them.

"You met them, and then what happened?"

He couldn't remember. No- he _couldn't _remember.

"Look again."

Fine, they told him he had to do it and he went along with it!

"Tell us what you see."

"...said I had to die..."

What he _saw _was the dark web of the trees over his head and all around him, and the village out of sight now and out of reach, the sickening sense of being in over his head now and then the four of them surrounding him, they always positioned themselves so they were _all around him..._

It was more drugs, little shiny black pills, but something about it felt so _final. _Like this rest was just trash talk and bullshit fighting and scrapping in the dust and bloodying his nose for the hell of it- but _this _now was serious. This was it.

The one with two heads and the eyes like broken blood vessels had it. Two heads but the normal amount of hands, though now Sasuke remembered vividly the sense that any of them might sprout new hands or heads at any moment, broken puppets cobbled together from pieces of others-

-and they handed him the little glass bottle, it was cold in his hands and he didn't want to look like a pussy in front of them so he tipped it down his throat and swallowed and-

"...said they had to induce the curse seal to the next level, it would kill me but they'd do a jutsu to contain it, so I'd be in a coma..."

Said a _lot of crap, _but what it was, what it _was..._

"...realized in retrospect a month later that it was the start of the drug-based mind control.. seal works that way anyway... figured they did that to get me used to taking pointless orders and obeying and accepting painful procedures and..."

...swallowed the pills and went down on his knees weak with nausea, the dark web of the trees swaying over his head.

"What do you see now?"

Darkness. He was unconscious.

"What do you see now?"

Naruto, trying to save him. Yelling a lot of _shit, _mind you, but trying to save him.

"What do you see now?"

Naruto beaten half to death, in shock and now finally out of chakra and energy and his body so ravaged by the Kyuubi that he couldn't keep himself awake, his body had just shut down.

And the raindrops falling over Naruto's still face, cutting his skin in little clear trails. Glittering on the metal, that mocking horrible reminder, the sense of being so over his head that he could never go back, that etched Konoha leaf.

"What do you see now?"

Orochimaru.

"Where are you now?"

With Orochimaru, being washed of blood and being bandaged up while Orochimaru watched, then walked through the ratholes, the stench of fear and desperation and agony belting him across the face, his eyes prickling and watering.

But he couldn't look like a pussy in front of Orochimaru, so his face was a stone mask.

Perfect and white. No feelings. No idea even what feelings _were, _alien and perfectly sealed away from them. Not a puppet, no, he was _not _a puppet because he _chose this. _He did this of his own will! He wasn't a puppet, he was a rational actor, plain and simple.

He was an actor...

...a kabuki actor, playing a role. No strings because he didn't need to be _made _to do something that he'd been convinced he had to do.

"Where are you now?"

With Orochimaru, Orochimaru's prisons in the basement of that reeking backwater. This had been back when Sasuke thought this level was the deepest floor of the buried headquarters. Watching Orochimaru kill someone violently _right in front of him-_

"Where are you now?"

In Orochimaru's harshly lit medical lab, watching him dissect some poor animal, it was so freshly killed that it's heart was still twitching when Orochimaru cut it open. Orochimaru exposed it's heart, shocked it back to life, warmed it back up and did something to it so it was dead but it opened it's eyes and howled and-

"Where are you now?"

In Orochimaru's bedroom, watching Orochimaru backhand, taunt- finally force himself on some poor kid, someone too terrorized and deluded to resist, watching and watching and realizing suddenly that _he was looking into a mirrored wall-_

"Where are you now?"

Here. Now. Tearing the blindfold off and failing because there was no blindfold- his fingernails scraped bluntly at his face, just genjutsu to suggest he was blindfolded and make him close his eyes and concentrate. Trying to rip the intravenous lines out of his arm, trying to make his limbs _work _when he was so sleepy and so disoriented and _so fucking terrified _because it was so real, it was like it was all _really happening-  
_

"...okay, he needs a break. Fifteen minutes? Okay, yeah, I got the sedatives-"

And then his own heartbeat slowing down... as he caught his breath.

Calmer when they began again.

"...he's got a real block over that part where they drugged him. Make note of that. Okay.. lets go again..."

Kakashi talking to the ANBU person who was not really there.

If indeed _Kakashi _was there.

Sasuke could see the room and the dusty walls, the incandescent bulb glowing in the half-torn paper globe lantern over his head. He could see the pen in Kakashi's hand and feel the ANBU around him and- none of that was interesting, it was like everything he wanted to see was behind his closed eyes.

Didn't _want _to see it much, but felt so compelled...

...telling them about Orochimaru. About what Orochimaru had done. Nothing special. Kill people, rape people, torture people. All of that- just controlling people. Using them. Sasuke figured that out pretty quick. Somewhere too he knew what was happening to him.

"...so why did he do that to you?"

Since Sasuke _knew. _He knew what it was about.

"...trauma-based mind control..." he muttered somewhere outside of his closed eyes.

And: "...some crap about the kundalini energy... have to draw on that to make the forbidden jutsus work... he said it works better if you do it to kids, so that's why he took me right before puberty...he wanted that energy so he could use me to get at more of it..."

Known it, not cared. Studiously _not _cared.

All of _that _was just _bullshit _about black magic and blood sacrifices and _yeah, _Sasuke knew how it worked, he'd listened to Orochimaru blither on about the fire snake coiled at the base of the spine, about how every occultic tradition in the world had always raped and tortured little boys, grabbed them while they were prepubescent to get at their sexual energy before it awoke- but it wasn't interesting.

It _didn't fucking mean anything._

Not unless you wanted to control people and use them.

"... so it wasn't really rape, just more of his crap about power, just another beating, nothing special..."

It was all just crap and Sasuke was tired of it.

His body was just a limp half-asleep doll connected to his mouth which was wired up to his subconscious memory. So he was only half-present as they drained the full litany of Orochimaru's antics out and wrote all of it down.

Half-aware, dreamstate. Telling them that he was pissed off about the horrible things Orochimaru did to cats and he was _pissed off _about that poor little girl and he was pissed off about letting himself get so drawn into it and he was sure he was guilty and that he deserved it anyway. Telling him _nothing _he didn't know before.

And the training, the jutsus which were hidden and kind of interesting- but useless since using them was like wrapping a puppet string around your own neck.

Like signing your own death warrant.

Or your own free will away, bargaining it on some false promise of power that was never going to materialize. Consigning yourself over to someone who'd destroy you because you wanted to die and just didn't have the guts to do it yourself. Seeking out _that _exact person, _that _exact purpose, having to go _that far _just because you hated yourself so much.

Crap like that.

He was tired by the time they shot him up with more drugs. These ones made him even more drowsy, shut off the other ones. Someone put pillows under him and he slept.

Dreams a jumble of bright images. Like sharingan memories but all mismatched together and fragmented like a smashed mirror.

Like his reflection that one time he'd put his fist through that mirrored wall in Orochimaru's bedroom, multiple images of Orochimaru's kohl-lined eyes twinkling with mirth and his pale painted lips laughing silently, Orochimaru watching with lazy indulgence from the bed behind him.

Waking blearily, someone shaking his good shoulder and fresh bandages and the sharp scent of emollient wet under them. Watching the water flow down the intravenous line into his arm because he was too buzzed up to eat or drink, and starving him a bit made the drugs more effective.

Watching and thinking about the stories his mother had told him, the brave samurai and trickster monks, the beautiful princesses and the monstrous demons...

...the painted face he learned to show to Orochimaru, like it was second nature. Show _nothing, _just go along with it. Thinking about how he'd just watched and _watched _and accepted and participated and _jumped _whenever he was told to and let himself be so taken in and controlled and duped and-

-wondering whether he had just been a puppet. Whether he'd done _any _of it of his free will. Orochimaru said- _you chose this of your free will. _But Orochimaru also said- _the curse mark has destroyed your free will. _And he was so trained, it seemed, to just not _notice _the illogic of that.

So he wondered if he would have rather have done it all with a clear head and with total intent. Would he feel better if he'd been vicious and destructive on purpose- because _anything _was better than being controlled and passive and just endlessly _used?_

Used and lied to and _lied to _and _used_ like a goddamn mindless stupid little kid by _every single one of these fucking people._

Would it be better if _he'd _used _them, _if he'd wanted it and he'd really chosen it?

Would he feel better if that was true?

Did he want that to be true?

No answers to that question as they took the blocking drugs out and started the other ones up again. Sodium pentathol and then something else to help it work and a jutsu mark painted on him now, to help focus him on telling the truth. Something about how it wouldn't work unless he wanted to cooperate, unless he'd come here to tell them the truth and cooperate and-

-none of these jutsu marks worked unless you _wanted _it.

Unless he'd _wanted _that curse mark to overwhelm him.

So how innocent was he really?

--

It was just a matter of waiting now. Naruto and Sakura went out through the gate. They had things to do out in the village. They wanted to gather belongings for their stay. Sakura had to work something out with the hospital so she could be on call. She wanted to stay near Sasuke and near her husband. And probably near Hinata too, Hinata had a feeling like she was being watched over. Maybe Sakura was worried about her too. No matter how many times she said it was okay, it was _okay..._

It never really seemed to stick or ring true. But Hinata had to pull herself back together. Behind the sunlight and the magnesium flash, the sudden heat of their argument, there was still that silent ticking. The timed explosion of Neji's vanished seal. It had been almost a full twenty four hours now.

She was on her way back upstairs to change clothes and try to sort out her thoughts, maybe sit in her little garden and watch the birds. She made it halfway down the main foyer before the council attendants found her. And called for her.

And she almost jumped a mile, she was acting so guilty. Neji would have been disgusted with her.

But Neji was nowhere to be found and only Hinata's great aunt was waiting for her. The attendants bowed, Hinata watched their ceremonial movements with tunnel vision, the thunderous hammer of her heart pressing her apart from within, like fear was scrawled messily all over her. She walked into the tatami room, she bowed and sat opposite her great aunt. She made the polite avoidance of direct eye contact.

And was glad of it, a single glance from her great aunt was like solar fire, it would strike her to a pillar of salt, turn her to stone, freeze her heart and stop her breathing...

But her great aunt did not seem angry and the room only pulsed with Hinata's own racing heartbeat, her own ragged breathing, her own messy, vulgar fear...

...her open emotions that she just couldn't keep to herself. She couldn't seem to become the perfect impassive Hyuga.

"We chose you as clan leader for a reason. And I'm harsh with you- with reason as well."

Her great aunt had a very formal, old fashioned way of speaking. Even her accent was subtly different.

"You're the granddaughter of my twin sister. By the laws of the house, and by my own heart-" This did not mean anything emotional, hearts were dry family connections like blood. Like bloodlines. Ties of power, clan loyalty, Hinata knew this, she didn't allow herself any uncouth hope. She just bowed her head. Submit with dignity, that was the Hyuga way she knew. "-by my own heart you are my blood and my granddaughter. Hiashi-chan is my son, you are my granddaughter. You are the one who watches over the clan now. We on the council are the ones who watch over you, the way the main and branch houses connect, and how we all connect to the house of the shogun, and the emperor. We all do our duty."

It was strange how the invocation of the clan went through her heart too, made it something more than a dry connection of blood. Hinata couldn't be cold and cynical about it like Neji was. She couldn't just decide that the clan was corrupt beyond hope and not worth saving. Maybe she was a bit like Naruto and Sakura after all, maybe even a bit like Sasuke. All of them had this kind of determination. She could be like that too.

"My duty is to help you become the clan leader you are meant to be. Everything I do is to help you grow stronger. Clan leaders are forged by the council behind them. Listen to me and obey, I'll make you into the leader you need to be."

"Yes, Obaa-sama." The words were second nature to her. She'd always been taught to do this. And if it wasn't right, why did it feel so good to just do what the family expected of her? They had never approved of her before.

"Don't be _ridiculous, _she must know already! The news has definitely been carried to the council by now!"

Neji didn't believe it, the way he just couldn't let himself believe in anything. The clan was just a bloody, dirty old relic to him. It was something barbaric that needed to be eradicated by justice, burnt to the ground because nothing in it was worth saving at all.

Maybe that was why she saw the funeral pyre when she closed her eyes. Not enough sleep for days now, and she was probably being very silly and very reckless... chasing traces of fire and ghosts of a chance. But it was right, it felt so _right. _

After her great aunt dismissed her, the sunlight flashed all over the house at her, like a fire sign from the heavens, like a signal she was on the right path. Neji didn't believe it, and Hinata knew he was older and smarter. But what did he know about never being wanted or approved of by anyone?

By anyone in his own family, his own blood, never having a place in his own _family? _

Not the way she did, she knew he suffered and they were bound up in that together. But this moment, was it so necessary for him to ruin it for her? Just a little bit of approval, it wasn't so much.

"Well, _I _have no idea what they're up to. But they'll know by nightfall if they don't already! We're in trouble now, and I certainly hope you have a plan, Hinata-sama. I hope that ghost of yours came up with something we can do to get out of this mess!"

Neji's familiar sarcasm, his worry and his impatience.

But inside her was stillness now. She was going to tell the truth. When she said it now, it was like a piece inside her had fallen into place. _I am the leader of the Hyuga clan- _her voice now. It fit her, like before she had been painted with cosmetics and dressed in silk kimonos, just a child playing dress up. But now something inside her was switched, snapped. Now she wasn't just an imposter, dressing up, pretending.

It upset Neji. She saw it happening. Her sudden silence and calm was different now, he could feel the change like it had altered the air temperature, the empty space between them. That _distance. _

It was like it brought him closer because he lost patience so quickly, and his forehead protector and bindings came off, he showed them to her in his hand, his forehead a bit swollen and bruised still. But clear.

Like empty white Hyuga eyes, something pale and horrible, the sight of his unbroken skin.

But somehow not as bad as she'd thought. She shivered, but either she'd made her fears wild and huge in her imagination. Or something inside her had fused together. Burst into a column of flame. In the centre of it, iron. That iron Hyuga cross, the solar manji. Neji scoffed at all of it, Hinata couldn't have argued with him and made him understand how this felt to believe. But she believed in it all the same.

She felt it. Her clan like a dagger in her heart, but her heart entwined with them forever because of it. Bound to them, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. Your clan was bigger than you, you sacrificed your life to protect and sustain it.

"Why did you do it, Hinata-sama?"

Neji was asking this with that handful of cloth still pointed at her like a damning accusation. Like a crime she'd committed and now he was reading her sentence. She shivered and she tried to stammer out an answer, but she knew the question was rhetorical.

"I think I know why." Neji pressed on, as inexorable as the fire eating through the flesh and blood of her father's body. That roar of the fire shooting up in front of her, she dropped the torch and then-

"I saw your father do it to mine. Use it." That tap to his forehead. Neji's hard white eyes. His impervious perfect circle of logic. "The seal. It almost killed him. And the second time he used it, it was fatal, your father killed mine."

Your father killed mine.

You did _not _say it, ever.

"_Because." _he said, silencing her when she tried to speak and tell him.. _what, _she had no idea. To shut his mouth? To not say that? That it _wasn't true? _It was true, she knew it and everyone in the house knew it, her father had killed his. You just didn't talk about it. "I'm saying it because I'm a lot like my father, Hinata-sama. And you," He paused. His eyes seemed to hold hers for a minute, lock her in place. " I'm starting to wonder if you aren't a lot like yours. Don't bother to deny it. I've seen you, trying to talk like him and parrot him, trying to sound like him. I've always understood you."

And even if she could try to argue, if she could get the words out...

"I did it because I wanted to free you, Neji-niisan." The simple truth, the stillness inside her, but none of that seemed to matter to Neji, that tap to his forehead again.

"I believe you. But that's not the only reason. You're afraid you're too much like him. You'll use it the way he did." Tap. The bruised, harmless remains of the seal.

But... no, this couldn't be true. She turned away from Neji, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.

A murmur in her chest, her damaged heartbeat.

But underneath it stillness and nothing but readiness to do what she had to.

And Sasuke said that Neji didn't understand her at all and none of her family did...

And Neji said that Sasuke was just playing with her feelings and using her...

And maybe it was that lick of flame, that fire-memory of her father, his voice like the torches at the funeral, that way the flames shot high with the kerosene ignited. His spirit that moved through her and made her wonder if she was just a weak passive little mouse, a cringing little spineless coward who needed Neji or Sasuke or Naruto or Sakura- always needed other people to protect her and decide for her and tell her what to do and think for her and-

"_I _did it. That was a decision _I _made, Neji-niisan." It was like the moment when she'd argued with her great aunt and grandfather, that this decision was _hers, _she'd accept the consequences of it.

But somehow there was always that look of dubiousness in Neji's eyes when she said these things.

Like he thought she was out of her mind, yes. But also that he wondered if even _she _was aware of what she was doing. That surely she wasn't capable of these things. Too weak. Too _weak _and too stupid and too useless and- _no_. Surely the fire, the legends, the stars and the chain of their light connecting her father's heart and the blood was true.

And she could trust herself and what her eyes told her. What the family's ancient gift revealed to her, in this world or the next. That byakugan vision. Her father and his approval.

But not his mistakes. Not again. Not another Hyuga clan leader fallen into that shadow world, that lure of greed and corruption. She knew it, she found it so horrible to look at and know and _see, _but she knew it. Everyone in the house knew what went on here.

"I won't use it, Neji-niisan." she whispered to him. Her hands were on his shoulders and she leaned close to his ear. He stiffened because it was something they never did, this closeness and touching and this _affection _most of all. It was like it was forbidden, not even to be _mentioned._

And she didn't care. This house was hers now. Even that thought was big and terrible, too huge to hold in her head at once. Too much to look at directly, the searing brightness of the sun. But she _knew _it all the same.

"I won't use it, I'd never hurt you, I'd never do what he did. Don't worry, Neji-niisan. I'm not like him."

Not the way Neji meant it. And Hinata understood, she didn't have to force Neji to say the ugly words and call up the ugly memories.

Just their invocation was enough. Much of what went on in the clan was like that. The suggestion, the hint. You never said anything directly. You invoked the spectre but you never said it's name.

Never talked about it openly...

Never called it what it was, never exposed the ugly rot in the clan to daylight. You just let it hide, invisible as two hundred clan members with the brand, the mark. But there, right in front of you, in the house beside you every day. Right in front of your face, in plain sight and-

-you _did not _evertalk about it.

Even Hanabi didn't. She misbehaved, but with method and precision to what she dared to do. The instant that she stepped over that invisible line, their father slapped her to the ground, picked her up- threw her against the wall.

Hinata watched, numb and boneless. Voiceless. Just a pair of silent Hyuga eyes seeing everything, as her sister's body seemed so small, just ragdoll limbs quivering as her head struck the wall hard, as she fell to the floor heavily. And didn't move.

Unconscious for the rest of the day from the force of the blow. Hinata saw it all- did nothing, said nothing. You _did not _talk about it.

You accepted it as part of life and part of the clan. And because you were part of the clan, the clan was bigger and more important than you. Your job was to serve it and protect it, to hide it's dirty secrets and ensure that it went on as it always had. Into a new generation with new main house rulers and branch house slaves. Always the same, the bright chain of stars unbroken. Nothing but the dazzling white surface shown to the outside, the diamond purity of their chakra, the glory of their bloodline and it's dojutsu which was clean and pure- not like those filthy demonic _Uchiha._

And you did _not _question that.

Her sister had woken up and for a while after that her head was bandaged and she whined about headaches and a lump under her hair. But she avoided their father. And her disobedience became strategic, and her anger became hidden and she _never _did that again.

Never, never that open disrespect until the moment she'd laughed and said that she was glad their father was dead.

And where was Hanabi now? Hinata had paced around her room all day and lost track of her sister. The rush to get Sasuke packed off with the ANBU, and the drama of Naruto and Sakura's arrival, their complicated team problems, even her argument with Neji... Had she talked to her sister at all yesterday? No- she'd been busy.

"Yeah, he didn't have any time for us. Like- _ever. _Remember?"

Hanabi was on the screened veranda on the north side of the house. Hinata heard the spring of the wooden planks under Hanabi's feet as she came around from the south side and it's open glassed-in hall. She'd wanted to walk in the sun and feel it against her cheek and the edge of her hand. Hanabi was doing some desultory taijutsu form practice. It wasn't really necessary, her sister's ninjutsu was swift, precise- excellent. Hanabi blew the stray lock of hair out of her face with a exasperated puff of air. "Dunno. Bored. There's all these creepy ANBU around the house. I saw one and it was _weird." _

Which meant that Hanabi was willing to come with Hinata, and she followed cheerfully enough, her active, bright chakra glistening all around them as she walked by Hinata's side. There was nothing misty and heavy and depressive in her. Not like Hinata, would was, as Hanabi had put it once, practically from another planet. She was damp and frightened and always worried. It was hard to imagine that they'd come from the same two people, they didn't even look alike.

Hanabi, in fact, looked more like Neji. Hinata was the oddball, the one with the blue hair, the water-ninjutsu, her Hyuga blood bent and diluted with ocean water. Or so it had always been said- until very recently.

"He could have like, been a better father. I'm just, like, saying.. okay oneesan?" Hanabi was uneasy, her voice pulled itself apart with likes and ums and hesitance and her effortless pose of cool when she was off-balance like this. Despite their enforced separation, Hinata did know her little sister.

It couldn't be like this under her rule. She couldn't make siblings live apart. Families shouldn't be cut apart this way, it really made _no _sense at all when she thought about it, when she _really _let herself look at the way they lived. But most of the time, it was easier not to think so much, to just go along with it. This was how she had been raised and it was her entire world.

She was trying to reinvent the _entire world, _an entire clan. The weight of it was already on her shoulders.

"Uh huh. I know. I saw him this morning and he was like, _really crabby, _worse than usual. I looked and I saw that his forehead thing was missing and I knew you did it. It was kinda cool because my sister is like, the _clan leader _now, it's really weird. Neji-niisan looks kinda mad about it though.." Hanabi trailed off, her enthusiasm dying with it.

"He's just not used to it yet." Hinata said comfortingly. These soft, soothing nothings came very easily to her, and she supposed she was actually good at it, comforting people. "... and are you... used to it? I know father..." That their father had designs on Hanabi- for a while, at least, not that Hinata was ever told any of this. She had just assumed, since she was thrown out and her father was so angry...

Hanabi wrinkled her nose. "He sucked. I mean as a dad. He _sucked." _she said this flatly, in that rude language that Hinata was always- gently, yes- but _always _asking her not to use. "Neji-niisan says that the old farts say that he killed mom, he was _mean _to us and he was just..."

This was the sort of thing to _not _react to, under any circumstances. Their mother had died in childbirth. With Hanabi, and part of Hinata still wondered, since of course her little sister would prefer to think that it had be something else that had ended their mother's life.

And it seemed so distant, the death of someone Hinata had never known, just the wish that she should have, that she wished she had. But she couldn't picture her mother's face. She didn't even have a name, a photograph. Sasuke whispered to her about how his family's faces were blurring in his memory and now he was struggling to remember what they looked like, he was starting to feel like he couldn't be sure that they'd existed at all. But at least he could picture them in the first place, they were more than an empty spot in his memory.

"..._anyway, _I think it's kind of cool. Is it fun being the clan leader? Don't you have to listen to the old farts all day and do boring paperwork? And you don't even have a bunch of guards to do spy stuff for you yet, I heard you and Neji-niisan yelling about it outside and then I heard the _mean boy _and Neji-niisan getting into another fight and then I had to go because our second aunt was having like ten cows because I left my kunai pouch in the hall and the cats got into it 'cause they smelled blood and _anyway-"_

The ease of her confidence was like the sunlight, fierce and warm and comforting. Hanabi didn't notice Hinata looking at her, Hinata had become very good at stealing affectionate peeks at her sister, so Hanabi wouldn't notice and get uncomfortable and standoffish because feelings might make her look uncool. But Hinata got so caught up in just watching her and the warm flicker of chestnut the sun picked out in Hanabi's hair, the quickness of her white eyes, she was a bit startled when Hanabi paused, gave her a firm look, and said-

"Don't lie to me the way father did. That sucked the worst. You have to promise that you won't use me like that."

Matter-of-factly, Hinata blinked.

"..use you? But he..." It was true she didn't know much of what their father did with Hanabi, but she'd assumed that he valued her and taught her and-

"Use me for dumb Hyuga clan stuff or whatever. He only did all that stuff because he couldn't use you. And then he decided he could and-" she fixed her eyes on Hinata. "-whatever. Don't do it, okay oneesan?"

At least this was a promise Hinata could make very easily. "...of course I won't. I'm... not very much like him. I won't."

"Good," Hanabi pronounced, having flicked her scrutiny away, satisfied with this. " 'cause he was a big _mean."_

Hanabi had been told by their father that calling people 'meanies' was something a small child would do, it was the diminutive 'ie' on the end that made it so immature. Undaunted, Hanabi had simply changed her terms. The council was a big mean, Sasuke was a big mean, Hinata herself- when Hanabi was upset with her- would sometimes be a big mean too. _That's not proper language, _their father had said irritably, Hinata could summon a clear memory of it. Hanabi yelling back, her arms crossed and her small feet planting. _I don't care, you're just a big mean! _

"I won't ever do anything like that." she whispered. "You know I'll never let anything happen to you, Hanabi. I won't..." She wouldn't do what their father had done to his sibling. The story of that was indelibly stamped into both of them, she didn't have to mention it to invoke the memory. The slight stiffening in Hanabi's expression told her it was understood.

"I know." she said confidently, recovering instantly, seamlessly, both of them were used to living with this and ignoring it. "Don't be sad, oneesan, 'kay? You're always so _sad. _Come on, Neji-niisan and I will protect you from those big _means._"

--

Needles in his arm. Tape curling off his skin because he was sweating so hard.

Back to the trance again, the strange vivid world behind his closed eyes. Kakashi's leading voice. The past organizing itself in a bright line, a clear path.

Back to that moment.

That moment it had changed. The new game had begun.

The moment when he ambushed Orochimaru, cut off his snakeheads, the blood all over his hands and soaking the front of his shirt and pants. A huge snake with human blood. Cut off the ugly white heads and _it worked._

Something was wrong with that moment.

Something was wrong with that moment he'd taken the pills too. Something was being done to him, what he was seeing wasn't what _really _was happening.

Orochimaru's white snakebody and the glistening coils of muscle and bone and gristle in the wet insides that bled all over his bedroom floor.

A false picture... killing Orochimaru and gathering his Hawk team and changing their names through half-remembered crap from Orochimaru, the feathered serpent and the ancient power of that. Hawks and snakes, something. Gathering three others, setting Orochimaru's vast collection of victims free, just tearing open the doors of the prison and burning the place down. Beautiful. And this time the big hero wasn't Naruto, was it? No. This was _his _moment of glory. Killing Itachi-

-but then... something was wrong. Something was off because he was in a foul-smelling underground room again. He was in a candlelit room being told horrible things by another painted face. Another hypnotic voice. Another _bunch _of _lies._

One red eye, a beesting swell in his memory.

About Itachi- who'd loved him. About Konoha- who hated him. About Madara who was his only hope, and the world was on it's head and black was white and he _couldn't take it, _he screamed and raged and finally Madara bound him to the wall so he couldn't run away.

And so he couldn't look away...

And suddenly Itachi and Orochimaru were gone and they weren't what Sasuke had thought they were at all, no, there was only Madara.

And the red sting of Madara's eye. Sasuke could barely see it in the shadowed hole of his mask. But he could feel it in there. That red was something you _felt-_

-in the pit of your stomach, like a kick in the gut. Like the feeling that you knew you were being lied to.

But just couldn't make yourself resist.

After that, spinning darkness. The vertigo trail spiraling out from the red pinprick. After that, the sinking feeling that the dreams, the nightmares of Konoha burning, of the Hokage's white throat under his foot as he stamped down and smashed her cervical vertebrate to pieces, the old one struggling as he pinned him to the wall and cut him apart slowly- those nightmares, those things that just _could not be real-_

-were not his memories, because the Hokage had long black hair and was a man, and-

-could _not _have happened, they were just _too impossible, _too unreal, too strange, too bloody, too unbearable!

Like Juugo's skin melting over him, where the eight tails had flayed him alive and where he was fighting for breath and starting to black out, somehow worse than ever before. There was a bottomless pit yawning under him, the daylight was fading away in front of his eyes.

_-impossible. _It _couldn't be real._

It _had _to be one of Orochimaru's games. Like the blocks Orochimaru had put in his memory!

The parts he'd just remembered, the parts he'd told them about where Orochimaru did things to people and he just didn't remember and he...

...just didn't remember...

...and where Madara sat him down after he brought back the Eight Tails and stared and the red sting of his eyes went...

...right through Sasuke's head like a hatchet, and his vision blurred. The darkness spun. And where Itachi was taken by Madara and Madara tied him to the wall and told him that Konoha had done everything and Sasuke looked up and...

...all he could see was that red knifepoint, that speeding kunai flying right towards him, Orochimaru's genjutsu, the second before it buried itself in his skull and Madara's eye was that point wet with his blood, that instant of death and that moment before it...

...that moment where he woke up and Orochimaru said it was all just a _big game, _a fun little trick he'd pulled on Sasuke, who was after all his favorite and _wasn't Sasuke surprised? _

And the numb depression after that.

That sense of unreality.

That endless sense of unreality.

Konoha burning and it wasn't quite real and Juugo staunching his bleeding and melting their skin together and it wasn't quite real.

Itachi dying with his blood dripping down Sasuke's face in the rain and stinging his eyes because _he was absolutely not crying _and it wasn't quite real and...

...underneath it all just a red eye, a red sting, a red needle, Madara tying him to the wall and Madara telling him what to do and Madara killing the Eight Tails' jinchuriki and Madara telling him that his only enemy was Konoha and Madara, and Madara..

...and it wasn't quite real and he _had _to get away, he _had _to get _away _from Madara.

And somehow he knew it wasn't real so he was running away.

His mission behind him. The lies behind him. All of that _crap _behind him.

Running away...

...from Madara.

"... write that down- there, that's a hypnotic program right there."

"...mind controlled assassin..."

"...looks like he resisted enough to pull himself off course and exhaust himself before he could get here..."

"...Hyuga kid found him..."

"...looks like the assassin program never triggered, smart move actually, just making himself run half to death, collapse out there, must have screwed up the trigger..."

"...gutsy as hell..."

"...have to dismantle that hypnotic suggestion before he wakes up, could still get triggered..."

"... let him rest, he's had enough..."

"Okay, Sasuke... just relax, we're going to let you sleep again and it'll be okay.."

Sleep like he'd fallen into a black well, safe down there and nothing could get at him. All of the poison was drained out of his head, Madara's red eye was far away.

When he woke it was morning and he was in a bed. Fresh clean cotton. Sunlight. White blossoms peeking out of the black fingers of cherry trees outside the window. Unfamiliar and safe. His shoulder bandaged again.

Kakashi sitting across the room from him, patiently reading one of his little porn books.

For a moment Sasuke struggled to sit up. His muscles were all tight again. Like he'd just fallen into bed after a fight and his opponent had whipped the crap out of him. His arms were asleep, pins and needles finally flowing down into his fingers and his shoulder hurt and-

"...ahhh, you're awake already."

-Kakashi being annoyingly calm about it, like Sasuke being pissed off was really normal and Kakashi was _really _used to it.

"...hey, hey... take it easy. You've had a tough few days."

"...how long..." Kakashi was coming over with a glass of water, Sasuke hadn't even noticed how dry his mouth was, how he could barely speak, how weird and cottony his head felt, how bright the sunlight was like he wasn't used to having his eyes open, like he'd spent a lifetime underground. In the dark. Far away from himself.

"You slept for thirty two hours.. And you should sleep more. The interrogation took four and a half days. We kept you awake for three of those after letting you sleep a bit on the first. How do you feel now?"

Sasuke couldn't managed to glare, to radiate irritation at Kakashi and his soft grey eye, his calm voice, the steady reliable rock-solid trustworthiness... nothing like Madara. Nothing like Madara's pinhole eye.

"Fine." he muttered. No venom in it. But he just couldn't find any words to say anything he felt to Kakashi. Gratitude wasn't something he could talk about anymore, the words were too unfamiliar.

"I don't remember what happened." he complained instead, watching Kakashi sit back down across from the bed. "I surrendered just so I could find out what really happened and I don't remember!"

"Don't worry. You remembered everything."

And a file in Kakashi's hand now, holding it up so Sasuke could see.

"It's all right here. Settle down and I'll tell you all of it."

--

The council caught up with her soon after.

And took Hanabi as well. It surprised her. Why not Neji? Neji wasn't there at all.

Somehow it wasn't what she expected. She had pictured a room full of angry family members. The council would be in full attendance, sitting in their line of stern judgment. The sun would be at their back, blinding her.

And the lesser ranks and strata of the clan would be seated around the room, just like it had been when they had done the rituals and transferred headship of the clan to her. She would be surrounded and stared at ,and she would be nervous. She'd do her best to explain herself. She was still not really comfortable with public speaking at all. It was only less scary now that she got up in front of a class of thirty every day to speak for hours. Her face no longer turned beet red- at least. And she knew what she had to do, there were different kinds of fear and this was a heavy sense of inevitability. It was not like the chuunin exam when her eyes had darted to every corner of the room, desperately seeking escape. This time, she knew it was coming.

And maybe the sense that she could stand before her family with pride made it easier. As a useless genetic failure, she had always felt it was proper for her to run and hide, to shrink into the wall and hope the tatami would swallow her up. It was what she was- a disgusting abomination in the eyes of the clan. And now, she was something else. Something that they valued.

At least pretended to value. Neji would have said that- _they pretend to value you. _Not because he hated _her- _because he hated the clan and couldn't imagine anything good coming from it.

Hanabi let Hinata take her hand. Hinata watched Hanabi's carefully neutral face, her eyes bright and too alert to be half as calm as she pretended to be. Even that Hinata was allowed to hold her hand was significant. You didn't talk about it, but the council owned you and your entire life. The Hyuga clan was paramount over any of it's individual members, and the council ultimately controlled the clan, didn't it? Hinata herself felt like a very small figurehead, a gilded dragon embossed onto the handle of a large bladed weapon, a decoration on it's killing edge. She was not it's head, it's mastermind. She may never control it fully and she _certainly _did not now. This was how Neji put it, and Hinata could hear his voice, the exact way he'd say it- _you certainly don't control it now! _ The council could do away with any member at any time, you didn't talk about it. And you helped them cover up the body.

And make the death disappear in smoke and ritual and fire, _lies we tell ourselves, that nonsense about stars- _Neji knew this more sharply than anyone.

"Those _big means _aren't going to do anything to us, I'll make the oni come to the house and the hunter-nins and the crows will _eat them all up." _Hanabi vowed under her breath. Her hand was white-knuckle tight in Hinata's. This was something she was saying to make herself feel better. "So don't be scared, oneesan. Remember when we had to read the boring history books about the stupid clan?" Her disrespect meant so little at this moment, Hinata didn't even flinch. "When the new clan leader comes, it's like a forest fire and all the dead wood gets _all burnt up, _so don't worry, all those _big means _are just mad because they know _they're next." _

It wasn't normal, was it? Having your thirteen year old sister casually make death threats about members of your family?

But she was too focused, too full of stillness and adrenaline now to feel any anger or even any revulsion, no time to scold Hanabi for something as meaningless as her _manners. _

"It's okay." she began, the council attendant was walking far enough ahead of them, they would probably not be overheard. But they had come to their destination. And Neji would be through that door. Waiting for her with council.

But he wasn't there.

It was a much smaller room, just a normal tatami tea room on the shady eastern side of the house. This would open onto a pretty garden later in the year and it's circle window would be unshuttered to display a layered carpet of moss and riverbed stones outside.

But only the council was there, and only a handful of them, seven of the twelve that lived in the Hyuga property in Konoha. Minus of course the other six that lived in summer villas in other villages and civilian towns, or up in the mountains away from the relative bustle of an active ninja citadel.

But Hanabi tensed beside her, and Hinata felt it too. Some hint to the air. Something was brewing here. Such a small number. Neji nowhere to be seen.

No witnesses, she thought. No witnesses. No witnesses. She couldn't stop thinking it.

There was talking, she couldn't hear it. It went by her like a stiff breeze, right through her like she was a ghost, that sense of resurfacing up from depths in the ocean that squeezed her lungs shut from the pressure, intense cold that forced her metabolism to switch so quickly and violently that she came back up feeling like she didn't belong up there in the oxygen and dryness anymore.

And a bit like those times when her byakugan had spotted a sniper, saw the kunai flying at the back of Kiba's head, saw that he didn't see it, saw that he couldn't have avoided it, time slowed down and sound bottomed out and nothing was there except her arm and her aim, the shuriken she threw and the shriek of metal on metal at high speed.

Giving explanations would have taken her out of this, she would have stuttered and stumbled for the words. She would have stopped and worried about whether she looked like a useless fool for talking about a ghost, a vision. She would have felt uncertain if she could invoke the chain of fire to the elders, themselves so much older and wiser in the ways of the clan than herself. But there was no demand for explanation.

They took Hanabi to the other side of the room, Hinata had to stand and Hanabi had to sit in front of the council line. But Hinata only had to listen. They knew about what she'd done- and it was a grave offense. They knew, it seemed, that she would invoke the clan leader's right to act on their judgment and-

"-because of this, we need only to see that your judgment is in service to the immortal will of the clan." her great aunt said coldly. "You will show us a demonstration of your strength and your loyalty, now-" An elegant gesture of her great aunt's hand, the same intricate reflexes of fingers that had cast thousands of genjutsu as finely threaded as silk embroidery, the motion of her hand was the embroidered border of a silent cloud in the air, a line of silvery energy, Hinata could see the blue flame of chakra clinging to her great aunt's fingers-

-like flashes of phosphorous as that hand clamped around Hanabi's upper arm, Hanabi screamed as the chakra burnt her and-

-under the harsh high sound of that scream, her great aunt's voice as calm as before. "-you'll brand your little sister in your cousin's place. You'll activate the seal and convince me that you're serious. Now, Hinata-chan."

The shock of the hold must have paralyzed Hanabi's vocal cords, she was trembling and white and silent when she was thrown to Hinata's feet. There was only silence after her great aunt spoke.

"_Now, _Hinata-chan." her great aunt repeated sharply.


	21. Disclosure

_Prove it, _the council meant.

Prove you're the clan leader, that you see the fire and the will of the clan leader before you, that you move and speak with his will and his hands are yours. That the entire line of clan leaders lives within you.

Justify your bloodline. They must have told her father this many times. And he had done what he had- what he _had _to.

The truth was that in the moment she just _did not think, _so maybe it was true. Maybe she was-

-'acting like a possessed person', as Neji would probably say, and even _he _would be shocked at what she'd done.

Hinata knelt by the wall. Her family was in an uproar.

Her house was full of noise and voices and it was her fault.

As usual. But this time it was different. She looked down at her hands, finger-laced tight with anxiety, but they did not shake.

She thought that this was like that other time, at the chuunin exam. And that time later, when she'd leapt upon that strange Akatsuki invader who was hurting Naruto. The one that was almost like a corpse.

Or _was, _really, given the white shriveled look around his eyes, and the way they gleamed like rotting meat. That greasepaint formaldehyde smell he had, that shadow of mold, queasy purples and greens. You had to get close to him to see it.

Her family had yanked her away from the medics as soon as they could. They burned incense and hung shrouds and called priests to cleanse the house and ink-seal her hands and burn pots of herbs around her and somehow blow away the horrible cloud of the omen that was then upon her.

She had touched something dead, and the day was particularly inauspicious and worse- it was Hinata herself. That she was the clan heir- that had something to do with it. But she sensed more in it. It was that she was thought of as especially vulnerable to evil spirit and curses and omens. Born in the winter. Blue hair like her mother rather than a classic Hyuga. Not as perfect as the others.

And now her hands burned with the sympathetic fire of the seal. Had her father felt this way-

-when he used it?

Neji's face had frozen into indifference, and that little tinge of anger under it, like the flash of a koi tail under thick ice. He said the family were faithful Shinto Buddhists when it suited them only. He said it was a lot of show.

But her father's anger, nothing for show about that at all.

She hadn't cried when he yelled at her for touching the Akatsuki invader. She'd told him it was her choice. Even when they said that Naruto was just as cursed, just as filthy as the dead horror of the Akatsuki ninja, who was using dead bodies as weapons.

"We are Hyuga. We don't involve ourselves with demons." Her father had said sharply. He stood before her like a white pillar of cloud. Immaculate, not a hair out of place.

And the way he'd said it, hammer-chiseled exactitude on every syllable.

"_We are not Uchiha."_

They were Hyuga, and they did things the right way, which was to say- the proper way. Which was the traditional way. Which was the clan's way. Which was what she had done, _because she was the clan leader. _And now as she watched the council look over the body, arrange it as if it were a handful of flowers, as if it were a ritual sacrifice…

What did she feel?

What had her father felt at this moment? She had wanted to be _like him _so much, she had wanted to become him. Maybe this was what they meant when they spoke of the chain of stars.

Her family being roused all over the house, all around her. Like the pillar of flames that had shot up in front of her.

_It's amazing that a little blue mouse could cause so much trouble. _The elders had said, on that day she saved Naruto.

Or tried to.

"She's done it." they said now.

And: "Call the priests. And notify the village."

And "No, this is a private Hyuga matter."

And: "It's her right. The spirit moved her hand."

And Hanabi "That's not true! There _are _no spirits! That stuff about the sun is all made up! " She was shocked and white-faced and her fear had collapsed into anger.

"Neji-niisan says it's all made up!" she continued, but no one was paying attention.

She huddled near Hinata, and her little arms were amazingly strong.

"Don't be mean to my sister!" And "No!" when they shushed her.

Her grandfather laid his outer robe over the body of her great aunt. Her face was white and still. And more than that- untouched. She had worn nothing on her forehead.

Which meant that it had been on her heart. And when Hinata reached for it, the chakra like fishhooks, jumping current from her fingers-

-it warmed to her hand, like a weapon made for her alone, like a key slipping into a lock and turning, smooth as satin. The feel of her great aunt struggling on the other end of the seal, its chakra forcing blood out of her heart.

The feel of everyone watching her.

The feel of seven Hyuga elders who terrified her suddenly falling silent, like the whole world stopped and looked- and she _was not afraid, _because her hand was on the seal and her hand was a chain of stars, and the fire leapt between them and now her great aunt was dead.

_Show me that you're serious, _her great aunt had said.

Show me that you deserve to lead this clan.

They all looked at her differently now.

"It's a ritual killing. A purification." Her grandfather said. "As clan heir and leader, as grandchild of fifty Hyuga clan leaders, it is her right."

It was like that other time, and she felt nothing. Amazing that she felt nothing.

Afterwards she felt nothing.

_______

Yes, something had changed.

Sasuke could feel it. He was calm. More clear-headed. He was not exactly as he had been, lost in anger and blindfolded, attended by ANBU and lead by them.

Now it was days later. The interrogation was over, and he remembered little of it. There was a small needle scar on his arm where an intravenous line had been taped in. He remembered that, and Kakashi's voice and no one's lips moving, as if he had been speaking with ghosts.

And, he reflected, in a way he _had_ been. In that file Kakashi held were the answers. The secrets. The weight of hidden and dangerous information he'd felt pressing down upon him from the moment, the second he'd crashed headlong into his house, this village, this girl's family.

Hyuga Hinata. A moment to reflect on it, the sound of her name. It was early afternoon and outside the sun was clear and bright.

And maybe he really did love her. He'd told her… well, that this was a possibility.

_If _he was capable of love then _maybe _he might love her.

Well, it was the best he could do. He didn't _dislike_ her, at least. And there were very few things he liked.

He wasn't all that fond of Kakashi at this moment, for instance.

Four days of drug-laced questions and little sleep and Kakashi was being annoying. Sasuke cast pointed looks and curt gestures and finally muttered at Kakashi to open the file, tell him what was in it.

"Eat first." Kakashi said, indicating the little tray of tea and onigiri.

Sasuke had basically ceased being hungry- ever- the day he saw his mother's blood soaking into the wood fiber of the floor. But Kakashi said that the drugs would wear off faster if he ate something, and Sasuke didn't feel like talking. It was hard to argue if he weren't going to talk.

So he obediently forced half of one rice ball down his throat.

Watched the sun on the bare branches outside, the chilly bright blue of the sky, the tiny little green pokes of budding leaves. Springtime. Cherry blossoms soon, maybe within a few weeks. Would Hinata like them? Probably.

Thought about her. Love, maybe. But the problem, as always, was himself. You couldn't love anything when all you had was a clenched fist in your chest.

And a shattered mirror for a head, empty sockets for eyes…

Kakashi was slowly turning the file's pages. His small grey eye scanning carefully. His manner, in fact, was not as relaxed as Sasuke had first thought.

Not anxious either, not exactly. That was not Kakashi's way. But there was something in that file that gave him pause.

"All of it," Kakashi said idly. "All the food. You need to build your strength, we used a very high dose."

And Sasuke scowled at him, but complied.

It was really ANBU's fault for using scopolamine in the first place. And probably a good wallop of hallucinogens too, judging from those needle-sharp visions, those fever-bright colors. That was interesting, drugs like that were really more Orochimaru's style. But the ninja world was a dirty one, and nothing succeeded- and spread- like a really dirty trick. Orochimaru had been a Konoha-ninja once. He had worn that ANBU mask-face. Then painted his own, built his own empire of deceptions, retreated to the countryside to brew his poisons in peace.

But it was funny, wasn't it. Konoha's protestations of their, how should Sasuke put it?

Their _moral superiority._

There was nothing like a ninja, an assassin, someone too low to even be a citizen and contracted to do the filthiest work imaginable putting on those airs. That moral superiority.

And so many of the unclean spirits of Akatsuki, of Orochimaru's torture chambers, seemed to hatch in leafy, sunny Konoha, didn't they? Funny, that.

But he did feel different, that much was true.

So he ate, drank the tea, and waited.

Studied Kakashi.

Sound magic had figured out Kakashi at last. It felt out his soft voice, his offhand manner, his depressive tone and body language, his low-energy sounds and energies. Even his chakra was grey and low, like a heavy overcast sky before a lightning storm. Sound magic spelt him out, you just had to realize that every note was a minor key.

Troubled?

"I'm going to tell you three things." Kakashi said.

"Tell me all of it." Sasuke grumbled.

"You can have the file afterwards."

"It's it ANBU property?"

Kakashi didn't answer, he just closed his eye. Bowed his head slightly.

"And why can't I remember?" Sasuke said, frowning now. This really wasn't fair. "I should know, I told you everything in that file."

And why was Kakashi acting this way? Mournful, almost. Like he had a heavy secret of his own, and he didn't know how to approach it really. And it was pissing Sasuke off, being stuck here like an injured child in the hospital, while his former sensei sighed and rubbed his eye and seemed to not know how to get to the fucking point already.

Sasuke contemplated darting out of bed, snatching the file. He'd go out the window, easy and swift as an escaping bird.

A hawk. Yes, he'd always liked that image. Lions, hawks. Snakes.

"Sasuke." Kakashi sighed. "Hear me out. You'll understand why when I'm done."

Sasuke glared at him over the rim of his teacup. But he stayed quiet.

And after a moment, Kakashi spoke.

"You reported extensive physical and sexual assault-"

Sasuke almost choked on his tea.

And he almost laughed in Kakashi's face, for that matter.

"So what?" he said.

_So what?_

Kakashi only regarded him with a slow grey-eyed stare.

It prickled him, made him flush. Which _really_ annoyed him, because he was not ashamed, he had no reason to be. He folded his arms.

"It was like any other part of the training."

Kakashi only raised his eyebrow slightly, as if saying this wasn't any kind of training _he _was familiar with. Infuriating.

"A ninja can be captured and tortured at any time." Sasuke told him.

And must be prepared for this, in fact.

Kakashi nodded and sighed. "True, true."

"You lead me into danger yourself." Sasuke informed him, feeling better now. "You have no room to, to…"

He frowned, not wanting to continue. To acknowledge it. He liked it how it was now, being able to pretend that Kakashi was just being stupid, compassionate, unfit feelings for any shinobi in fact, and weak-

"I may not have the right to feel sympathy for what you went through," Kakashi began.

Sasuke turned from him and kicked off the covers. He got up- too fast, his head pitched wildly with the remaining drugs. His hand shot out for the wall, found it- steadied himself.

"You couldn't prevent it either." he taunted, when he had his balance again. Sneered, then caught his reflection in the windowpane, imprinted by the sun.

Orochimaru's face, serpentine white. Twisted by hate.

Turned his stomach and shot his flinty little pride to pieces.

And for a long moment, Kakashi said nothing, Sasuke turned his back, busied himself with getting dressed. What would he do after this? Figure out what was in the file. Deal with it- with more dignity.

More than this.

"I may not have the right," Kakashi said quietly. "But I have the right to wish I'd prevented it, "

It was unbearable, the sound of his voice.

"-that I could have gotten through to you, somehow." Soft like he expected Sasuke to argue.

His sigh like he knew it was pointless to even try.

"And that I could have protected you."

_______

Hanabi explained- to Neji- because Hinata was useless.

She felt useless, as ineffectual as a bent arrow. Like the day had literally deformed her, bent her out of shape.

So that she didn't even recognize herself. That dizziness, the faintness, the black spots that danced on her vision when she was taken to her room, finally. And when she broke from her guards to look in the mirror.

The younger one held her up when she swayed on her feet. The elder one stood silently behind.

And behind them both, breathing hard still, her eyes bright and her face flushed, was Hanabi. Filling up the room with her nervous angry defiant sun rays of chakra. Her black sun halo all around her dark gleaming head. Hinata looked at her sister, framed the unbroken whiteness of her forehead, of the blood vessels and nerves and coils of her skull and brain behind it, all the tight little pieces that her father must have felt when he felt for the seal.

Tugged it.

Killed Neji's father with it, and Hinata studied the wholeness of her sister's face, the place where the seal _was not _and _would never be _now. Now that she was the clan leader. Thought about how it was so strange. So unexpected. She had thought a forbidden jutsu would be hard. It would resist you. You'd have to brace your body into it and force it to turn like a rusted waterwheel.

But it wasn't like that. It leapt to your hand, it coiled around your wrist, it slipped into your palm and it fit perfectly there, it was so elegant and so intoxicating, it warmed and you never wanted to let it go.

Her head swam a little, the black spots pricked like raindrops again. It was like she'd drank- too much and very quickly, foreign liquers that were full of sweet fruit and heavy strong alcohol. It was like she couldn't think of anything else.

Killing Neji's father must have been like a knife through butter. Like snapping a nut husk open in your fingers. Satisfying.

Hanabi was uncomfortable with her stare and let her know it. But she yelled and gestured and stomped her foot and still, Hinata couldn't stop staring.

"You're acting ALL WEIRD RIGHT NOW!" Hanabi exclaimed, hot points of color in her cheeks now, pacing Hinata's bedroom. "You're acting really weird!"

The guards watched her. And in their peripheral vision, Hinata knew they watched her too.

She could only put her hand over her eyes and rub her eyelids. The dizziness danced all around. Like funeral pyres. Was she dreaming? She was dreaming. She was dreaming of her father's smile, the celestial curve of it. Like the long open bowl of the horizon. The sky and it's millions of points of light.

"I don't even _know_ what's wrong with her, she's acting weird. _Way _weirder than when the mean boy came, or even when she was acting weird after the funeral. " Hanabi muttered to Neji, when he arrived.

"And.. um.. Neji-niisan?"

She must have leaned in close to Neji's ear, tried to make it so Hinata couldn't hear her whisper.

"Um. I'm scared."

_____

"Wish all you like." Sasuke told him.

He used that voice he had used on Naruto many times. Iron, deeper than his usual tone. No. Arguments.

Kakashi took it like nothing had been said. He just sighed, as if he were scratching the back of his head, considering an afternoon of tedious but unavoidable work.

But he _did _care, he was just able to act like he didn't.

No- not even that. To just exist with his compassion and his concern, as if in Zen serenity. He didn't have to apologize for it, to pretend it wasn't there. He simply felt it.

Sasuke grumbled, insulted still. Somehow.

"I guess you don't want anyone to feel anything for you," Kakashi said. Mused. No particular inflection.

Didn't perceptively care when Sasuke glared at him.

"I told you all to leave me alone." he said.

Let the silence itself carve out the _massive crushing understatement _of this.

Kakashi probably smiled, but his mask _hid _his smiles, made his face into a puzzle.

"…you know we can't do that." he said. When he gestured for Sasuke to sit down, maybe not worry, maybe relax, maybe realize that he wasn't actually being attacked here..

…well, Sasuke considered it. His shoulders stiffened. He clenched his fists.

He sat down on the edge of the bed.

"I guess," Kakashi said, as he turned pages. "that you don't want to exist at all, really. You can't stand to see yourself in the eyes of others."

Sasuke graced him with a single, brief, ricepaper-thin knifestroke of a smile. A small bitter one, a bitten-off lemon rind.

"I _want _you to tell me about the file." he said. Never mind the rest of it.

Never mind Kakashi's psychological profile, his _professional fucking opinion _as the ANBU case officer, his stupid feelings.

His _stupid _feelings.

"I never asked _anyone _to feel sorry for me." he snapped.

At the unreadable blankness of Kakashi's face. His- in fact- very professional maner. His effortless easy fucking _calmness, _the fact that he'd managed to reduce Sasuke to shouting _twice! _Fucking twice!

So Sasuke huffed and snarled and glared and Kakashi weathered him like he was a miniature storm, a tiny little lightning bolt that Kakashi effortlessly held in his hand.

Balanced there. Like when he'd taken Sasuke up to the high place in the mountains, where the trees were sheared apart by the windspeed and eagles nested. Where he'd showed him the secrets of chidori.

Thousands of screaming birds.

"You don't have to ask." Kakashi said, reasonably.

Unsaid: _I'm your sensei._

And also: _I know you better than anyone. Differently than your teammates. _

Made Sasuke twitch. Made him feel ashamed of twitching. Made him hope Kakashi hadn't noticed while knowing that Kakashi would have noticed from fifty fucking paces away. And Sasuke knew his training. He knew to keep calm. He knew also to show minimal emotion, to control his breathing and force his heartbeat down. It was best to acknowledge the reality of the situation, and as fast as possible.

As Kakashi spoke, and turned the pages of his file, Sasuke watched the cherry blossoms. They were new and white against dark fingers of branch and a burning blue sky. No leaves yet, but still. Familiar. Konoha.

"Tell me _now." _he emphasized to Kakashi, but nothing was moving fast enough,

And maybe he really didn't want to know.

"There's a lot to take in here." Kakashi mused, his slow laconic voice unrolling like a scroll.

So Sasuke watched the branches sway in the wind, and thought about the sky in Otokogure. Grey like a concrete bunker. Sodden somehow, like the entire country was soiled from the groundwater up. Like it had mildew growing on it.

"Tell me." he said.

"….where to start…" Kakashi sighed to himself.

"Tell me." Sasuke said, his voice a tangled, drugged, disoriented skeleton of itself.

"You went AWOL from Konoha to join with Orochimaru."

Sasuke was clear on that.

"You served under him and he taught you forbidden techniques."

Sasuke nodded.

"You witnessed several acts of extreme torture."

Sasuke looked at blossoms. White and clean and untouched.

"And you were coerced to participate by Orochimaru. Upon failing, you were punished."

_So what? _He thought. Ninja ran the risk of torture and imprisonment.

"In particular an incident where a kidnapped child was harmed."

"Murdered," Sasuke said flatly.

Kakashi paused, his flat eye raised.

"She was murdered." Sasuke repeated.

His eye went down to the page. He didn't miss a beat. "An incident where a kidnapped child was murdered."

Sasuke nodded. To himself.

When he looked hard, the sky would burn around the flowers, show itself to him as the real picture in negative space.

"And many incidents involving cats, which troubled you due to having pet cats as a child."

"Not relevant." he said. Didn't look at Kakashi.

Didn't see what look Kakashi gave him as he paused.

"Keep going." Sasuke said.

"You reported that you were tortured as well."

_So what?_

"Including sexual assault."

Like any ninja could be, it was normal.

"On several occasions. Including what we would consider extreme use of psychological torture."

_I went of my own will. _

"Beyond what is considered acceptable practice in Konoha."

"Konoha shouldn't talk." Sasuke said abruptly.

He didn't deign to look, but his other senses told him that a significant glance had been thrown his way. As delicately as a senbon flicked and zinging past him.

And Kakashi had all the answers in his lap. He knew everything.

"Keep going." Sasuke said. His throat felt dry.

_____

The Hyuga clan. A sun that burned patiently while the Uchiha clan fanned the flames. And when the Uchiha took the dark road of the Tengu, of blood sacrifice to demons, to the Kyuubi, to killing it's own, the Hyuga turned towards the sun.

Endlessly followed the sun, their own trail of stardust. Hinata's hands delicately curled in her lap. One into another, white like the crescent moon.

Hinata had seen her father's writing in those horrible letters he wrote to Uchiha Fugaku.

_Without us, without the sun, there could be no will of fire. _he had said.

_There could be no Uchiha clan._

And that when Hyuga killed their own, when Hyuga worshipped a sunny vision, when Hyuga found that the sacrifice came so easily, it was right and good.

That made sense to her now. Somewhere in the bright lights flashing behind her eyes. Miya had come in, looked her over.

Shrugged.

This was normal for upper house Hyuga who used the seal. The chakra recoiled on them a little. It was like hitting someone and hurting your own hand.

"Rest, stay off your feet today and you'll be fine." Miya said gruffly.

Hinata looked at her and the black spots swam.

_Can't you see how different I am? _she thought. To think of change, to dream about change, to wonder if maybe she had changed just a little- all her life. And now, to change in this dizzy run of blood. In this single gleaming stroke, like from a golden sword. Like how you imagined it would be, when you first took up the wooden practice sword. When you raised your arms to practice the form. When she watched Sasuke do swordwork drills, saw the flashing arc of his blade, ringed like the corona of the sun.

Like that.

Using it felt like that.

Using it felt like a seal burned itself into your heart. Changed you.

Made you Hyuga.

The star was in you after all, maybe. It was the mark the seal made on your own heart. You became Hyuga- and maybe her father had smiled because of this. Because he was out of his body and away from his human heart and his hands that had used the seal and branded it into small children and finally killed people- more than one, Hinata's mother had died this way- he didn't have that inside him anymore.

Maybe his smile had been sad because he'd known. Being a ghost, being outside of time, he must have seen that Hinata would know this too. Soon enough- within days. She too would become Hyuga- the way he had been. The way he'd always seemed so cold and angry. The way his heart had finally burned itself out completely, rotted right out of him.

She couldn't believe she was thinking this. These thoughts. These memories, his body in the coffin, not decaying yet but soon- within days.

So they'd burnt him. And he was freed. His heart was gone.

The seal was gone.

The star was inside her now.

_Show me, _her aunt had said.

And now everyone could see.

They acted like it was absolutely plain, the way they were looking at her. Like she was finally what she was meant to be.

She looked down at her hands.

Didn't look at Neji.

Neji was talking to Hanabi instead. Or- at least- Neji was trying to find out why Hinata wouldn't say anything, and Hanabi was just talking, because Hanabi had been there and seen everything.

But they sat away from her now. Not just the physical distance. The sunlight that fell between them drenched their feet, poured into Hinata's bedroom down from the blue sky. The very first convincing day of spring. And she had used it to kill her great aunt.

Done _exactly _what was asked of her.

And now, well. Hinata had to pause, had to feel herself breathe, make sure she was still alive, she wasn't turned to ice and stone, to white eyes and senbon glances and her father's long sword.

The sword he'd leaned on that day in the dojo. The day he finally realized that she was useless, that he didn't care what happened to her. When he'd told her sensei to just take her away, Hyuga was disowning her.

Was he thinking of this moment?

She couldn't stop thinking that he'd approve.

That he _wanted this. _Because she wanted it.

Didn't she?

Wanted it. And now it was hers.

_____

Orochimaru's antics could fill ten files, Sasuke thought. A hundred.

"I know what he did," he snapped. "Skip it."

"It's valuable intel," Kakashi sighed. It was hard to tell with most of his face hidden. But when Sasuke deigned to look at him again, he saw dark circles under Kakashi's eye.

"Your memory will be fragmented for a few hours. You've been under a forbidden genjutsu and the drugs haven't worn off yet."

Kakashi didn't look at him again. He turned pages and his eye skimmed long lines of ink. Sasuke watched him for a moment longer. Silence gathered and dropped.

"We should try to get through this." Kakashi said.

"Why don't we talk about Hyuga Hinata?" he said.

That wasn't any of Kakashi's business.

"She's a strange choice for you." Kakashi talked about this like it was nothing. "But.." a vaguely self-depreciating gesture. Minor key voice. "I had a hard time picturing you with anyone."

Sasuke would have only grunted, had he felt this deserved any response at all.

He wondered vaguely if Kakashi was going to lecture him on ignoring his problems. Everyone, he thought, knows about the White Fang. Everyone knows that story.

"It must be that you don't have to pretend with her." Kakashi was saying. Drip by drip, like water torture.

"Because you have no history with her."

_I'm tired of having a history._

Tired of _being _nothing but history.

Or maybe just wanting to entirely _be _history, still so ashamed that he had survived rather than die- properly and with some dignity. Go into the tomb, the hidden cavern and it's secret scrolls, go deep down into the earth and out of the reach of the clan's dirty secrets.

Maybe he was just tired of all that.

"You know that Orochimaru didn't put that sword wound in your side." Kakashi said.

It wasn't a question, either.

"Tell me," he said again. Tell me, tell me, tell me. Tell me so I can be free of this. This crushing weight of dead bodies, clan history. That trail of blood unwinding through the house and past the dead and to Itachi's feet. Tell me.

So it can come to an end.

________

A/N: This is just a mini-chapter, kind of a test run to see if I can keep on with this story. As I noted on my author page, there are some canonical problems with this story just because I began writing it back before Sasuke killed Itachi and Orochimaru. But given how crazy the current canon is, I'm sure I can splinter off from canon if necessary. What's most important to me in writing this story is how Hinata and Sasuke sort out their emotional issues, not exactly whom Sasuke kills off in what order. And while I don't want to rag on Kishimoto too much, he really doesn't always address all this stuff in his conclusions. So I guess, consider this story a divergent 'what if' kind of plot.

Anyway, I'm amazed and flattered that people are still reading this story more than a year after my last update! :D I'm glad you guys are enjoying it enough to put up with me being flaky and losing inspiration when canon was too ridiculous to take seriously. I have a pretty intense work schedule, but I'll do my best to continue on. Thanks very much for reading!


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